Oral Answers to Questions

DEFENCE

The Secretary of State was asked—

Service Personnel (Gulf)

Jim Cunningham: When he expects all service personnel to be returned from the Gulf.

Geoff Hoon: Our military campaign objectives contain a commitment to the withdrawal of British military forces from Iraq as soon as is practicable. It is as yet too early to predict when there can be a complete withdrawal of UK forces—that will obviously depend on the circumstances. We will maintain an appropriate military presence in Iraq as long as that is necessary to set the conditions in which the Iraqi people can get their country back on its feet politically and economically.

Jim Cunningham: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Although I welcome any withdrawal of British troops from Iraq because they obviously want to get back to their families as soon as possible, what contingency plans have been made for policing in Iraq and the delivery of aid, especially humanitarian aid, in which British troops currently play a major role?

Geoff Hoon: I thank my hon. Friend for drawing the House's attention to the need for as many of our forces as possible who have been engaged in war-fighting operations to return to the United Kingdom at the earliest opportunity for some well earned leave. Hon. Members may have noticed that some 400 Royal Marines arrived home this morning.
	With many of our forces returning, I am pleased to assure the House that others will be available to continue to bring security and stability to southern Iraq. That includes involvement in the reconstruction effort. British forces have already made a significant contribution to the stability and security of southern Iraq as well as to ensuring the availability of humanitarian assistance. That effort will go on.

Paul Keetch: May I join the Secretary of State in hoping that our forces will be home as soon as possible? I also wish to ask him about the comments of the retiring Chief of the Defence Staff, Sir Michael Boyce, whom the Secretary of State would doubtless like to join me in congratulating on his peerage. He said that the British Army would suffer "serious pain" if it had to make future deployments in the next few years. In Iraq, it appears that the Territorial Army is filling some of the gaps among our overstretched regulars. What proportion of UK forces in Iraq is from the Territorials? Does the right hon. Gentleman have plans to send more Territorials there? Since TA units do not have the same training opportunities and welfare packages as regular forces, does the Secretary of State intend to make any improvements to the TA's welfare package?

Geoff Hoon: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for commenting on the Chief of the Defence Staff's elevation. I was able to pass on my personal congratulations and I am sure that other hon. Members would like to echo that.

Andrew MacKinlay: So long as he toes the line from now on!

Geoff Hoon: It is probably as well if I do not comment on that observation.
	The reserves are making a substantial contribution in Iraq and will continue to do so. The important point in the strategic defence review about the way in which we reorganise reservist forces is making them useful and useable. They have made a tremendous contribution so far and I am confident that they will continue to do so.

Syd Rapson: Will my right hon. Friend congratulate the mothers in support of troops movement, commonly known as MIST, in Portsmouth? It has organised two marches so far in support of our troops so that we do not forget their sacrifices and activities on our behalf.

Geoff Hoon: My hon. Friend is right to draw to the House's attention the tremendous contribution of families in support of those who have served in the armed forces in Iraq and other places. I am delighted to endorse his comments.

Andrew Murrison: The Secretary of State will be aware that there are threatened large-scale resignations from the reserve forces because of the perception that they have not been handled well in Iraq. Will he comment on that and let hon. Members know what he plans to do about it?

Geoff Hoon: I am aware of press, but no factual, reports to that effect.

Chris Bryant: Many tributes have rightly been paid to British service personnel serving in the Gulf. Would not the best tribute be to ensure that the ongoing and enduring medical needs of service personnel returning to the UK are catered for and that all the medical lessons of the first Gulf war are learned?

Geoff Hoon: That will remain a priority for the Ministry of Defence. Considerable effort has been made to ensure the availability of high-class medical facilities in theatre. That effort must continue, as my hon. Friend says, once our forces have returned to the United Kingdom.

Bernard Jenkin: May I add my voice and that of the Opposition to those of congratulation to Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, who looks forward to taking his peerage? He stood shoulder to shoulder with the Secretary of State through many difficulties and appears to have earned an early peerage for plain speaking. I presume that such an invitation will not be extended to members of the right hon. Gentleman's party.
	I congratulate all the armed forced on the crucial role that they continue to play in the effort to stabilise post-war Iraq. During the war, our armed forces distributed leaflets that assured the people of Iraq:
	"This time we won't abandon you. Be patient together we will win . . . We will stay as long as it takes."
	If the Secretary of State cannot say how long that will take, and what forces will be required, is this yet another open-ended and unfunded commitment for our overstretched armed forces?

Geoff Hoon: It is neither open-ended nor unfunded. What is important, however, as the leaflet illustrated to the Iraqi people, is that British forces remain there as long as is necessary to ensure stability and security, and to play a part in the reconstruction of Iraq. Once those tasks are completed, I should want to see British forces return home as soon as is practicable.

Bernard Jenkin: So it is not open-ended, but the Secretary of State cannot say when it will end. Today, we still have reports of looting and of the continuing breakdown of law and order crippling efforts to rebuild Iraq, and it is our troops who have to wrestle with the consequences. Does he recall how the Conservatives warned the Government about the lack of preparation for post-war reconstruction? Now that the Secretary of State for International Development has resigned, is it not clear that the Government's planning for post-conflict Iraq was paralysed by splits at the heart of Government?

Geoff Hoon: The hon. Gentleman makes two foolish points; given more time, he would probably have made more. So far as his apparent criticism of open-ended commitments is concerned, I invite him and other Members sitting behind him to think for a second about whether they would want to put a specific date on the conclusion of British military operations, given what has been achieved so far. He is simply making silly points—[Interruption]—and he repeats them now from the Front Bench. He really needs to give a little more thought to his observations before he gets up, even from his present position on the Front Bench, dependent as he appears to be on the Leader of the Opposition's grace and favour. In those circumstances, he ought to think about certain other observations as well. We have just seen an extremely successful military operation in Iraq, and a Government who were in any way divided could not have conducted it.

Service Personnel (Gulf)

Cheryl Gillan: What provision he will be making for the welfare of (a) service personnel and (b) ex-service personnel after the Gulf conflict.

Adrian Flook: What provision he will make for the welfare of ex-service personnel who have taken part in the 2003 Gulf conflict.

Lewis Moonie: All personnel returning from Operation Telic, whether regulars or reservists, are being provided with appropriate support measures, acknowledging that each individual's experience of the conflict will be different. The procedures vary slightly between each service according to need, but are essentially similar and delivered in three stages: recovery, normalisation and after care. Support services include debriefings and post-operational tour leave. Reservists will receive all appropriate briefs, a medical screening and support with the potential for follow-up action as required, including specific guidance on returning to their previous employer. Post-deployment medical screening is not provided automatically to regulars, as they are subject to routine health surveillance, and all personnel are able to consult medical staff at any time, should they feel the need to do so.

Cheryl Gillan: Will the Minister tell me why our service personnel get such a raw deal when they are risking their lives on the front line, and why they lose out financially, particularly when compared with the American forces, alongside whom they are serving in the Gulf? Will the Minister now get the Armed Forces Pay Review Body to bring our soldiers' benefits to the level enjoyed by our American allies, and pay their council tax for them and give them income tax relief while they are deployed on active service? Is not it about time that the Government gave our forces a fair deal?

Lewis Moonie: This seems to be one of the many myths that the Opposition perpetuate. The body responsible for armed forces pay and remuneration last year conducted an independent study into the package of benefits available to all serving men and women in a vast number of countries, including the United States of America, and concluded that our package, taken overall, was the equivalent of all of them. I do not think that we have anything to apologise for.

Adrian Flook: Marines of 40 Commando returning home from Iraq this weekend may consider that now is the time to leave the forces and settle down to civilian life in Somerset and Taunton. Some of them may be suffering from the mental scars of conflict, so I welcome the setting up of the medical assessment programme run by the MOD at St. Thomas's, but given that it will assess patients and only recommend treatment, what discussions are being held to ensure that local NHS hospitals such as that in Taunton have the knowledge and resources to treat ex-servicemen properly?

Lewis Moonie: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support. The measures that we have introduced should go a long way towards allaying anxieties about the support that we intend to give people on their return from the Gulf. We must try to cover every possibility, but he makes a good point about the management of mental stress, especially post-traumatic stress disorder.
	We have come a long way in the past 10 years, and we certainly have a much larger body of expert advice available in the NHS, which has experience of treating such people. The medical assessment programme can provide help and advice too, so, all in all, while we cannot guarantee that no one will suffer as a result of their service, we are well placed to pick up on those who have served and to give them whatever help is available.

Llew Smith: On the welfare of service and ex-service personnel, what are the Government doing to clean up the toxic and radioactive contamination that has resulted from the use of depleted uranium in the recent invasion of Iraq?

Lewis Moonie: Any environmental programme will have to be drawn up as Iraq develops under its peaceful administration, and we are well aware of our obligations to take part in that, but I make it clear to my hon. Friend that there is no evidence whatever from anything that I have seen in the records of our people that any of our soldiers have been damaged by contact with uranium, depleted or otherwise.

David Taylor: After the first Gulf conflict, the medical screening that was available for returning UK service personnel was incomplete, incoherent and utterly unsatisfactory. Further to the Secretary of State's answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant), will the Minister give a little more detail to show how we have learned from those serious mistakes of a decade or more ago in terms of the personnel returning from this conflict?

Lewis Moonie: Our medical package has been carefully tailored to manage people appropriately within the situation in Iraq and on returning home. To that end, we keep better records and conduct more medical surveillance. We shall also take a great many steps as people return to debrief them adequately on their experiences and to provide medical help and assistance where necessary.
	In addition, as the House is aware, I announced last week a programme of research, which will look in great detail prospectively—that is important—at the health of a large cohort of those returning from service in the Gulf. That will aid us in helping with individual problems and in establishing a proper database on which future research and work can be conducted.

Keith Simpson: On behalf of the official Opposition, may I warmly welcome the statement made last week by the MOD on setting up the research programme on the physical and psychological health of those involved in the recent Gulf conflict? Everybody will appreciate that move.
	May I raise unfinished business from the earlier Gulf conflict? On 4 February, the MOD launched a High Court challenge against the pensions appeal tribunal ruling last May in favour of Shaun Rusling, which officially recognised Gulf war syndrome. Is it still the case that the MOD does not recognise Gulf war syndrome as a medical condition? Given that the Department is not planning to appeal against the successful claim of Alex Izzet on 5 May at a pensions tribunal that the concoction of drugs that he was givenbefore planned deployment in the previous Gulf war caused osteoporosis, does that not, in effect, recognise the fact that such a concoction of drugs did cause severe medical problems for many veterans? Is it not time for a definitive ministerial statement on the subject, which so many servicemen and others feel needs addressing?

Lewis Moonie: May I take the second point first? We did not appeal the Izzet decision because there are no grounds in law for an appeal. The fact that almost all informed medical opinion—certainly among all those who have studied the work that has been done and the practices used during the Gulf war—disagrees with the tribunal does not alter the fact that it is entitled to come to its decision. We cannot challenge it in law, and we will not do so.
	The position is different with regard to the definition—it is purely a definition—of Gulf war syndrome. I feel strongly that we should not use terms that have no basis in medical fact. To use the term "syndrome" to describe conditions that encompass almost every symptom known to man or woman is highly unhelpful. We have challenged that ruling, and our position remains unchanged. In our opinion, there is no such unitary illness or disease as Gulf syndrome. A great many people have become ill as result of their service, but that is quite different.
	I stress again that no one gets a penny more pension from us because they are diagnosed as having Gulf war syndrome. Pensions are paid on the basis of disability. At present, more than 1,200 are paid to veterans of the Gulf war. It does not matter to their financial recompense whether their condition is described as Gulf war syndrome. In my opinion, it matters greatly, because medical opinion in this country, in the United States and anywhere else where the condition has been studied properly is entirely in agreement with our position.

Military Training Schools

Vincent Cable: If he will make a statement on the privatisation of military training schools.

Lewis Moonie: The defence training review, published in March 2001, recommended that some types of military specialist training should be rationalised. It also recommended that industry should be engaged at an early stage in determining how that training can best be delivered. Accordingly, the Department is currently taking forward a programme to provide, in partnership with the private sector, modern, cost-effective training, better accommodation and facilities, and the more efficient use of the training estate.

Vincent Cable: Is the Minister aware of the serious concern in his Department and in the armed forces that specialised training—from complex logistics to intelligence training—could be handed over to private companies that do not have the experience or the expertise of MOD trainers, and do not have the knowledge of long-term military requirements? When they get that knowledge, they will have a long-term private monopoly over a service that is critical to national security.

Lewis Moonie: I would be concerned if that were what we are doing, but it is not. The rationalisation programme is about modernisation of training, and ensuring that delivery continues to adapt to reflect operational need. The benefits that we will derive from a more efficient use of the training estate will help us to achieve those key aims. We are currently consulting prospective bidders to determine the scope of a future partnering arrangement. We expect to be ready to select short-list bidders and issue invitations to negotiate by the end of the year. Each prospective consortium has been carefully scrutinised to ensure that it has the full range of skills and experience required to meet the needs of our programme.

Barry Sheerman: My hon. Friend will know that I am usually in favour of relationships between the public and private sectors, such as private finance initiatives. Does he agree that the training record of the British defence forces has been exemplary, and that most people recognise that our armed forces historically have the best trainers in the world? Whether he calls it rationalisation or anything else, he should be cautious before he destroys the critical mass of training in our armed services.

Lewis Moonie: I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. That is precisely what we are trying to do. Our training has been the best in the world, and our intention is not only to keep it the best, but to make it even better. Everything we are doing in the review is aimed at producing that outcome.

Nick Hawkins: Does the Minister recognise that it is important to keep all Members of the House who have constituency interests in defence training informed of plans? He will recall that there has been a history of difficulties with defence training establishments in my constituency, but I shall not labour that point because he is well aware of the problems. I have the defence medical training organisation in my constituency, and I am sure that he would agree that there is nothing more vital to the interests of our armed forces personnel than defence medical training. Will he undertake to keep me and all other MPs fully informed of any further developments or changes in defence training, especially in the medical field?

Lewis Moonie: I should point out that this is not part of the training review, but I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman that I generally try to ensure that a Member is informed of any changes that are likely to affect the interests of his constituency. If I fail to do so, Members are not slow to remind me!

European Rapid Reaction Force

Sydney Chapman: If he will make a statement on his policy on the European rapid reaction force.

James Gray: If he will make a statement on the UK's role in the European rapid reaction force.

Geoff Hoon: Although we want European Union nations to strengthen their military capabilities, there is no standing European rapid reaction force or any EU agreement to create one. Existing national or multinational forces, declared under the Helsinki headline goal, will be made available to the EU on a voluntary, case-by-case basis when required for a crisis management operation. The United Kingdom has made a significant contribution, offering a wide range of capabilities and assets, but there are, overall, still significant capability shortfalls against the EU's headline goal. EU Defence Ministers will consider shortly how to take matters forward. The UK will look to member states to make firm commitments to improve European military capabilities, rather than duplicate existing capabilities.

Sydney Chapman: Will the Secretary of State confirm that it was agreed in 1999 that the European rapid reaction force should be concerned with peacekeeping—that that should be its role—and that last year it was agreed that the NATO reaction force should cover high-intensity conflicts? What on earth was the point of last month's summit between France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg? Would not any other arrangement be duplication at best—as the right hon. Gentleman suggested—and divisive at worst?
	Will the right hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to agree with the Prime Minister's recent statement that the basis of any European defence policy should be entirely compatible with our membership of NATO?

Geoff Hoon: I do not think I shall have any difficulty with the hon. Gentleman's question. Having been involved in negotiations on the need for improved military capabilities, whether through the European Union or through NATO, I know that that compatibility is crucial. That is precisely why we judged that the recent Brussels summit was neither timely nor appropriate.

James Gray: The Secretary of State's very helpful answer seems to me to reaffirm three fundamental truths about the European rapid reaction force. First, if the intention is to provide a NATO rapid reaction force at the same time, we certainly have not enough forces for the purpose. Secondly, nothing emanating from Brussels could possibly be described as rapid in any circumstances. Thirdly, the mini-summit held a couple of weeks ago clearly demonstrated that the whole thing is not European.
	Do I understand from the Secretary of State's response that he is straightforwardly and unashamedly condemning the notion of a European army? We do not need it at all.

Geoff Hoon: Our criticism of the recent Brussels summit has been consistent, as has our criticism of all the attempts to create a so-called European army. What we want is for our European partners to make determined efforts to improve military capabilities, whether through the European Union or through NATO. We believe that those efforts should be concentrated specifically on the adding of new capabilities rather than the duplication of existing ones.

Ann Cryer: Will my right hon. Friend comment on the future of the European rapid reaction force, given the deep differences of opinion on Iraq that we have observed over the past month or so?

Geoff Hoon: The future of the force will be in the terms I have set out to the House—in the improvement of European military capabilities. It will not have a future if it fails in that task. That is why the United Kingdom consistently urges our partners to invest in extra and more capable military forces, so that Europe can make an effective contribution when it chooses to act on a case-by-case basis through the European Union, or more commonly when it acts as a member of NATO.

BAE Systems

Ian Liddell-Grainger: If he will make a statement on the strategic defence review and its impact on his purchase plans for equipment from BAE Systems.

Adam Ingram: The 1998 strategic defence review and the new chapter published last year remain the foundation for the shape, size and capabilities of our armed forces. The defence White Paper to be published in the autumn will provide an updated statement of defence policy and explain our plans for the delivery of enhanced defence capability. This will provide the baseline against which the Department will work with companies such as BAE Systems to procure future battle-winning equipment.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: I thank the Minister for that reply. The Royal Ordnance factory in Puriton in my constituency has turned out an enormous amount of ordnance over the past few months to support our troops in the Gulf. BAE Systems has said that it will continue production there, but I wonder for how long. Does the Minister agree not only that that battle-winning equipment, as he calls it, should be manufactured in this country but that one should ensure that it can be procured at a moment's notice for use in any battlefield around the world? Will he therefore commit himself to continuing production?

Adam Ingram: I will always pay tribute to the work force of Royal Ordnance factories throughout the country. I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that the privatisation of that part of our supply was carried out under a Conservative Government. Indeed, the previous Member for Bridgwater may have been Secretary of State for Defence at the time, but I will check that.
	It is clearly important that we have a guarantee on supplies. Of course, all that will be subject to the lessons learned from the current conflict. We will conduct a deep analysis of what happened. It will take some time to come to decisions but I am sure that the view expressed by the hon. Gentleman will be reflected in some of the conclusions reached.

Shona McIsaac: Is my right hon. Friend aware that 470 jobs at BAE Systems in Brough are under threat because of perceived delays in resolving the Hawk contract? Will he do all he can to lobby other Ministers in his Department and other Departments so that the contract can be sorted out sooner rather than later and the 470 jobs no longer be under threat?

Adam Ingram: The best advice and information I can give my hon. Friend is that BAE Systems's proposal is being evaluated, so it would be inappropriate to speculate on the outcome at this stage. It is incumbent on companies that depend heavily on the Ministry of Defence to be proactive internationally. Alongside what they do for the MOD, they should look for other commercial outlets for their work force. Again, we hope that a decision can be reached quickly on that matter. That may ease the minds of the work force there.

Michael Jack: In the light of the retiring Chief of Defence Staff's remarks with reference to the Government's commitment to purchase 232 Eurofighters currently under production in my constituency, does the Minister understand that such remarks have caused much uncertainty and worry in the Wharton work force? The work force are also concerned that the Government have yet to make a clear decision about tranche 2 of that aircraft and the order for 80-odd aircraft, and uncertain about the Government's intentions in developing a ground attack capability for the Eurofighter Typhoon. May I ask him to put on record, if not now in the very near future, a clear statement of what the Government's precise intentions are about that weapons system to deal with the uncertainties that thousands of my constituents are experiencing?

Adam Ingram: That is a fair and reasonable point. There is no question but that the MOD consults very widely and comprehensively as decisions are taken both in moving forward and perhaps in terms of rationalisation or changes to decisions. That is what we seek to do.
	We expect the four partner nations to place the order for the tranche 2 aircraft, of which the United Kingdom's share is 89, later this year. Under the undertaking given in the four-nation memoranda of understanding, the UK has undertaken to acquire 232 aircraft out of a total production of 620. We will, of course, keep the capabilities of the defence programme under constant review, but our commitment to the Typhoon programme remains unchanged.

Kevan Jones: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, under the strategic defence review, record numbers of orders have been placed with United Kingdom manufacturers? That has given a tremendous boost to economies such as that of the north-east of England. Does he further agree that the strong base that those orders have created gives UK manufacturing a strong and determined base from which to pursue export orders?

Adam Ingram: I agree entirely. It is a point well made. As it stands, our capability and equipment programme is of record-breaking scope. We just need to consider the shipbuilding programme and the many other important procurement decisions that are coming on-stream. My hon. Friend made a good point in saying that the quality and capacity of British engineering companies enable them to win their share of the contracts, and he is right that that gives them a tremendous platform on which to build for the future not just in seeking and obtaining further MOD and international defence contracts but in gaining a significant share of the commercial market that is out there.

Gerald Howarth: As my right hon. and hon. Friends have made clear, serious question marks hang over a number of critical defence projects involving not just BAE Systems but the many British companies in the supply chain. I was astonished at the answer that the Minister gave the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac). Does he accept that what he said must set alarms bells ringing in the ears of the work force at Brough? It would be inconceivable for the UK Government to order an advanced jet trainer other than the proven, highly successful, world-beating Hawk aircraft. Nobody in this country would be able to understand it if he ordered anything else. He should get on and order the aircraft by the end of June if wants to keep those employees in continued employment.
	Will the Minister also confirm that the joint strike fighter programme is slipping, with consequences for our maritime air defence? Without the JSF, the new aircraft carriers that he is ordering will be rather pointless. What efforts is he making to get the Americans to sign up to giving Britain the technology access agreements that are required by BAE Systems?
	Further to the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), what about the Typhoon tranche 2 and its air-to-ground capability? The Minister must address that issue very quickly, or we will not have the right equipment for the Royal Air Force.

Adam Ingram: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman talk to the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and find out whether all the commitments that he is making—

Bernard Jenkin: You do not have the money, but they are in your programme.

Adam Ingram: I am trying to explain that we get a shopping list from the Opposition. On our programme, I gave a clear answer in relation to the Hawk. The final bid has been put in by BAE Systems, and it has to be evaluated. I do not know whether the Opposition spokesmen are saying that there should be a different strategy in Departments and that they should just say yes no matter what bid a company makes. That would not be good-quality government.
	Let me explain about BAE Systems. In the last financial year, the MOD made payments of about £250 million and the contracts awarded were worth in the region of £2.7 billion. That shows a significant measure of confidence in that company, and we could, of course, give similar figures for other major UK-based defence contractors. We are investing very substantially in British manufacturing through the defence sector. It would be nice for that to be recognised and applauded by the Opposition.

Force Deployments

Nick Palmer: How long the current level of ground forces will be deployed in Iraq.

Geoff Hoon: British forces will not be deployed to the region any longer than is necessary, but will remain there while the operational situation requires it. I have already announced a number of withdrawals and replacements of our forces and I shall continue to keep the House informed.

Nick Palmer: As my right hon. Friend is aware, the reserve armed forces who have been operating in the Gulf have been admirably supported by the national headquarters in my constituency. There are those who intermittently criticise aspects of what is happening in Iraq, but may I express the hope that he will agree that our forces will be in safe hands when they return with the support of the mobilisation centre in Chilwell?

Geoff Hoon: I am delighted to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the contribution of the reserves in Iraq and, indeed, to the work of the reserves training and mobilisation centre in Chilwell in my hon. Friend's constituency. I have had the privilege of visiting the centre on a number of occasions.
	Although we will need to send further reservists to Iraq to help our forces to meet their continuing obligations there, we are also seeking to bring home as soon as is practicable those reservists whose tasks have been completed.
	My hon. Friend might like to know that Chilwell is playing its part in the reconstruction of Iraq. Secondees from British Government Departments to the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance are receiving their pre-deployment briefing and training at the centre.

Graham Brady: Will the Secretary of State turn his attention to the terms and conditions of members of the reserves and, especially, the situation faced by one of my constituents, who is a police inspector and a member of the volunteer reserves? If he is called to serve in Iraq, he will face a pay cut of £20,000 a year, which is a source of grave concern for his family. Will the Secretary of State consider what might be done to revisit the banding of salary levels to take that into account?

Geoff Hoon: The bands are kept under constant review, and I shall certainly examine any specific case that the hon. Gentleman cares to bring to my attention. Arrangements for the payment of reserves are long standing, tried and tested and generally work very satisfactorily.

Andrew MacKinlay: Bearing it in mind that conflicts such as that in Iraq put pressure on our armed forces and front-line troops, will the Secretary of State reassure us that even if the political situation improves in Northern Ireland, the British Government will look on the home service battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment as a rich reservoir of skilled and professional soldiers, at low cost, who should be maintained in their existing numbers and not given up as a political pawn in some settlement?

Geoff Hoon: I agree with my hon. Friend's tribute to the Royal Irish Regiment. I have had the privilege of seeing it in action in Northern Ireland and elsewhere on a number of occasions, and it does a tremendous job.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Bill Wiggin: If he will make a statement on the searches which have taken place for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Andrew Rosindell: If he will make a statement on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Geoff Hoon: There is no doubt that Saddam's regime continued to develop weapons of mass destruction in breach of United Nations resolutions, and that we will continue to find evidence of these programmes. Coalition forces are actively investigating sites, documentation and specific individuals connected with Iraq's WMD programmes. Both the United States and the United Kingdom have deployed specialist personnel and will send more in the near future.
	These investigations will take time. The Iraqi regime had every opportunity to hide these programmes, given their considerable experience in concealment. Gathering and collating evidence of WMD programmes from the various sources will be a long and complex task.
	I can confirm that UK experts have conducted preliminary assessments of the suspect mobile vehicle referred to by members of the US Administration last week. It is clear that this vehicle is military, and is a transportable system designed for producing micro-organisms. As such it should have been declared by Iraq under United Nations Security Council resolution 1441, but it was not. It appears to match the information on Iraqi mobile biological agent production facilities described in our dossier of last September and by the US Secretary of State to the Security Council in February.

Bill Wiggin: Given that Amir al-Saadi, the chief chemical weapons scientist, and Dr. Salih Ammash, the senior biological scientist, have been held in custody for some time, why does the Secretary of State think that the Americans have withdrawn their weapons inspectors and replaced them with the smaller Iraq survey group?

Geoff Hoon: The purpose of the Iraq survey group is to provide a core of experts drawn from several different countries, including the United Kingdom, to pursue the necessary scientific inquiries that such investigations require. There is no diminution at all of the coalition's efforts to identify weapons of mass destruction and, indeed, to publicise them when appropriate.

Andrew Rosindell: Has the Secretary of State had the opportunity to observe what was published in yesterday's Washington Post? It said that the 75th Exploitation Task Force, which is charged with finding weapons of mass destruction, has found places that have been "looted and burned". Is there evidence that potential terrorists have looted any of those weapons, or that they could be used against the west?

Geoff Hoon: I am aware of those reports and they are being investigated. There are reports of looting, although I cannot confirm them. It is obviously a matter of concern, which is why it is so important that we have detailed investigations on the ground carried out by experts.

Malcolm Savidge: Does my right hon. Friend recognise the importance of re-establishing UN inspection teams, first, to reassert the UN's authority, which is also vital for the administration of Iraq, and, secondly, to provide credibility because there are growing suspicions that the immediacy and extent of the threat from Iraqi WMD—the reason given for the rush to war—was massively hyped on the basis of the selective use of unreliable or even specious intelligence information?

Geoff Hoon: As the Prime Minister and the President agreed at Hillsborough, the UN has a vital role to play in the continuing efforts to rebuild Iraq. We have made it clear that it would be useful to have an independent source of verification for findings of weapons of mass destruction, and that might well include a role for the UN. As far as my hon. Friend's final observation is concerned, I have just drawn the House's attention to the discovery of a facility that was set out in the dossier on the basis of intelligence available to us last September which was also referred to by the US Secretary of State. I hope that my hon. Friend might reconsider his observations.

Tony Lloyd: My right hon. Friend will recall that one argument for the invasion of Iraq was the discovery of weapons of mass destruction and the need to destroy them, especially as there was a danger that they would pass into the hands of terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda. Does he think that there is any possibility that weapons of mass destruction may have been transmitted to terrorist organisations in the present period?

Geoff Hoon: I have no specific evidence of that at this stage, but it is obviously a concern while we are unable to identify precisely elements of the weapons of mass destruction that we referred to previously. As I told the House, the effort goes on and is proving to be successful.

Julian Lewis: Given the great importance of uncovering Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and, indeed, his links with terrorist organisations, will the Secretary of State explain how it was possible that British journalists were able to obtain key documents from Ministries several days after the fighting had ceased when such documents should previously have been secured by British and American intelligence officers?

Geoff Hoon: The hon. Gentleman knows full well that for a short period there was serious disorder and looting in parts of Baghdad in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. That was specifically aimed at elements of the regime, in particular the governing part. Not surprisingly, journalists on the spot were able to get access to documents that were not secured by the coalition. That should not come as a great surprise to the hon. Gentleman.

European Defence Capabilities

Huw Irranca-Davies: What discussions he has had with European counterparts on the future co-ordination of European defence capabilities.

Geoff Hoon: I take every opportunity to discuss with my European colleagues the need for improved co-ordination of military capabilities, particularly in the context of European security and defence policy, NATO's Prague capabilities commitment initiative and the United Kingdom's bilateral defence relationships. I will be meeting EU colleagues on 19 May and NATO colleagues in mid-June.

Huw Irranca-Davies: I thank my right hon. Friend for that response, but does he agree that, with the one laudable exception of the UK, our European partners to date have failed to perform in terms of military procurement and commitment of troops, whether for peacekeeping purposes or conflict resolution? Is he surprised to hear voices in the Opposition criticise our support for enhancing European capabilities? Would he describe the position of Opposition Members as (a) ludicrous, (b) untenable, (c) illogical or (d) all of the above?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Those matters are nothing to do with the Minister.

Geoff Hoon: Nevertheless, I am grateful for my hon. Friend's observations. It is important that the UK set an example both in spending more money on defence and in spending that money more effectively—something that I should hope Conservative Front-Bench spokesmen would support. What is interesting about their criticisms is the extent to which they fail to recognise the need for European nations to work effectively together to improve the military capabilities available to all through either the European Union or NATO.

Patrick Cormack: Why should we trust the French?

Geoff Hoon: The French have a substantial military contribution to make, should they decide that it is politically appropriate to do so.

David Heath: Has the Secretary of State had the opportunity to examine the composition of EUFOR—the European Union force in Macedonia? Is he aware that it is made up of a number of very small contingents from a large number of countries, rather than units of command from single countries under their own commanders, as I would have expected? Does he believe that that is an effective way of deploying a European force?

Geoff Hoon: Obviously, that is a matter for military judgment as to the capabilities of the particular force and from where it should be drawn. I am satisfied that the military advice that has been given is the right advice and that the force in Macedonia is doing a good job.

Iraq

Hugh Robertson: If he will make a statement on operations in Iraq.

Geoff Hoon: Decisive combat operations in Iraq have been completed. Saddam Hussein's regime, which had for years brutalised Iraq and threatened the wider region, has collapsed.
	In most areas of Iraq, coalition forces are now focusing upon stabilisation operations, setting the conditions for the restoration of the country's political and administrative structures. We will continue the humanitarian efforts already under way.
	British forces have played a major part in the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime. They have once again demonstrated their professionalism and expertise, combining combat operations with support for the civilian population. They are now helping the Iraqi people to take the first significant steps along the road to greater political and economic freedom and security.

Hugh Robertson: The Americans apparently plan to publish their report on the friendly fire incidents on the internet this week. Given the sensitivity of the subject, not least for those units and regiments, such as my own, which lost soldiers in tragic incidents of that sort, will the Secretary of State tell the House precisely how many British personnel are involved in the investigations, when they intend to publish their findings, and what consultations they have had with our US allies on the subject?

Geoff Hoon: There have been extensive consultations. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the investigations are conducted in parallel form through the national chain of command. We are represented in the American process, as they are represented in ours. However, as he says, it is important that there be full transparency of both the conclusions and any action that is then required to be taken.

Gordon Prentice: Am I the only one to be utterly astonished that, after interviewing goodness knows how many Iraqi scientists who were allegedly involved in developing weapons of mass destruction, the only thing that we have found to date is the transporter to which my right hon. Friend referred earlier? How many Iraqi scientists have been interviewed, and what has transpired as a result?

Geoff Hoon: My hon. Friend had better prepare himself for further astonishment, because I have to tell him that sometimes when they are interviewed, people do not tell us the truth. It is therefore necessary for us to continue investigations into where weapons of mass destruction have been hidden. As I said earlier, the Iraqi regime had many months in which to hide weapons of mass destruction; we have to have a similar period in which to locate them.

Edward Leigh: Further to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent (Hugh Robertson) about friendly fire, will the Secretary of State say more about what work has been done since the end of the conflict? Will he give the House a commitment that any progress made by the Americans will be matched by us? In particular, has he done any research into BCIS—battlefield combat identification system—developed by Northrop Grumman, an American company, which puts transponders into American tanks so that they have technical facility to deal with friendly fire? It is important that our kit for our soldiers is as good as the Americans'.

Geoff Hoon: I think that the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members will accept that the most important work that needs to be done in the light of the conflict is to investigate thoroughly the friendly fire incidents in question, so that we can properly understand what went wrong—clearly, things did go wrong—before we take decisions on potential solutions. The Ministry of Defence and I are willing to consider any solution that guarantees the safety of our services personnel.

Joan Ruddock: My right hon. Friend will know that 2,000 extended range bomblets and shells were used in the British battle for Basra. Will he ensure that the impact points of those munitions will be made available to the United Nations mine action service and to non-government organisations? Will he warn civilians of the consequences of unexploded bomblets? Does he agree that it would be more appropriate for the funding of such clean-up operations to be provided by the MOD rather than by the Department for International Development?

Geoff Hoon: My hon. Friend is right. Determined efforts are made to identify the location of unexploded bomblets. Records are kept, and members of Britain's forces are routinely engaged in making safe any unexploded ordnance. That work is under way in Iraq as I speak, and it will continue. There is no difficulty about the funding of that work: it is carried out by the British Government.

Service Personnel (Gulf)

Patrick Mercer: What measures he is taking in support of widows and partners of service personnel who died in the Gulf conflict.

Gregory Barker: What measures he is taking in support of widows and partners of service personnel who died in the Gulf conflict.

Lewis Moonie: I pay tribute to all those who gave their lives serving in the recent conflict in the Gulf and to their families. The country owes them a deep debt which we are determined to meet.
	Long-term financial support is provided to widows and dependants under the armed forces pension scheme and the war pension scheme. Where a service person died as a result of the conflict, and left a partner with whom there was a substantial relationship of interdependence, ex-gratia payments equivalent to benefits paid to a surviving spouse will be awarded to unmarried partners under the armed forces pension scheme.
	In addition to the financial support, my Department is providing emotional and administrative support and assistance to the families. That support will be maintained for as long as the families require it.

Patrick Mercer: I am grateful to the Minister for his reply, but he will be aware that, on top of the measures to which he has referred, for a modest monthly sum, generous pay-outs can be received from PAX, the private insurance scheme. The difficulty is that that is a private insurance scheme, so it costs servicemen to buy it. Secondly, not every serviceman is enrolled in the scheme. Is it not now time for the Government to take on that burden to provide proper insurance for our servicemen so that their widows have a generous settlement?

Lewis Moonie: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that a review of pensions and compensation is being undertaken. I hope to return to the House in the near future to discuss some of the changes that we shall be making. However, the hon. Gentleman hit the nail on the head. For a modest payment, additional insurance can be provided. We always recommend to our people that they should take that out. Whatever we provide for them, it will always be essential for people to take additional cover for themselves to provide for their families. It would be prudent for them to do that, and something that we would encourage them to do.

Gregory Barker: The Minister will know how important holidays are to our service personnel and their families, who necessarily endure long periods of separation. Family holidays not only bring quality time but also, when booked significantly ahead in the year, give something for servicemen and their families positively to look forward to and to focus on. Does he have any plans to compensate the many hundreds of servicemen who have lost out significantly in financial terms because of the Iraqi war or the firemen's strike? If he has any such plans, has he compensated any servicemen to date?

Mr. Speaker: Order. That supplementary question has nothing to do with the main question.

Iraq

Tony Cunningham: What discussions he has had with EU partners on allied support for the reconstruction of Iraq.

Geoff Hoon: Now that decisive combat operations have been completed in Iraq, United Kingdom forces are concentrating on stabilisation and humanitarian tasks. In taking forward the wider political and economic reconstruction of Iraq, the coalition and, in due course, a new Iraqi Government, will need to draw on the expertise of the international community. Recent discussions with a number of countries, including European Union partners, have covered the possible contribution of numerous capabilities, including, but not limited to, infantry, medical personnel, engineers and logistic support.

Tony Cunningham: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Can he assure the House that his Department will draw on the experience of our EU partners, particularly in the Balkans and Afghanistan, to ensure that vital services are restored in Iraq as quickly as possible?

Geoff Hoon: I can assure my hon. Friend, as I said a moment ago, that we want to draw on the experience of a number of EU partners and, indeed, future EU partners. They have indicated their willingness to make military capabilities available, and we want to use them.

Glenda Jackson: Surely, one of the lessons that we have learned from previous conflicts concerns our rather tardy approach to clearing up civilian areas post-conflict. What assurances can my right hon. Friend give the House that thousands of unexploded bomblets will be cleared from civilian areas first, rather than from those areas that our troops our entering?

Geoff Hoon: I indicated the priority that was given to the clean-up a few moments ago. Those efforts continue, and they do not discriminate between civilian and other areas. A determined effort is made to ensure the safety and security of both military and civilian personnel.

Iraq

Jack Straw: With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a statement about Iraq.
	Last Friday, the United Kingdom, the United States and Spain informally circulated a draft resolution about Iraq's future to members of the United Nations Security Council. I have placed copies in the Library and the Vote Office. Our aim is to put Iraq in the hands of its people through an open and accountable process, in partnership with the emerging leaders of the new Iraq. The draft resolution sets out the United Nations' role in that process, and calls for the United Nations to
	"play a vital role in providing humanitarian relief, in supporting the reconstruction of Iraq, and in helping in the formation of an Iraqi Interim Authority."
	That reflects fully the undertakings given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and President Bush at their Hillsborough meeting on 8 April. I will set out for the House the main points of that draft resolution and, in the course of doing so, deal with a number of questions that have been asked about it. Before I do so, however, I shall report briefly on the situation in Iraq itself.
	After almost a quarter of a century of brutal, authoritarian rule in Iraq, creating a free and secure society was always going to take time. Barely a month has passed since the regime fell. Today, the security situation varies in different parts of the country. The United Nations regards the south as safe enough for its agencies to operate, albeit with significant precautions. The situation is improving in the north. In other areas, including Baghdad, the situation is unsatisfactory, and there are still too many cases of violence and lawlessness. Establishing security within the rule of law is the coalition's first priority.
	Let me now deal with the humanitarian situation. Supplies under the oil-for-food programme are getting through. The United Nations' World Food Programme has supplies in the pipeline until September and there are no reports of widespread food shortages. We are urgently tackling the lack of access to drinking water, a problem that has blighted the lives of Iraqis for many years. Urgent efforts are continuing to provide adequate medical supplies and equipment to Iraq's hospitals. The reports of 16 cases of cholera in Basra are obviously a matter of great concern, although fortunately there have been no reported deaths from the disease. To put that in perspective, cholera is endemic in southern Iraq at this time of year. Work is continuing to improve water and sanitation facilities, and the Department for International Development has positioned in Kuwait cholera kits for 11,000 cases, to be used by the World Health Organisation as required.
	The coalition's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance will tackle the huge task of restoring civil administration in Iraq. Increasing numbers of Iraqi public servants are now returning to their jobs. However, results in the early weeks have not been as good as we had hoped. I therefore welcome the appointment of US ambassador Bremer to ORHA. Working alongside the United Kingdom's Major General Tim Cross and forty British secondees, he will bring fresh impetus to ORHA's efforts. On the political front, we have already seen evidence of the exercise of the new-found religious and political freedoms in Iraq. I welcome the peaceful return at the weekend of the Shi'a religious leader, Ayatollah Hakim to Iraq from Iran, and other religious and political leaders, none of whom could exercise any political or religious freedoms under Saddam's regime. The meetings of Iraqi representatives in Nasiriyah on 15 April and Baghdad on 28 April marked the start of a process of bringing together a national conference in which all Iraq's regions and ethnic and religious groups are represented in order to select an Iraqi interim authority.
	This body, which will comprise both political figures and technocrats, will progressively take on responsibilities for the administration of Iraq as a whole, as operative paragraph 9 of the draft says,
	"until a permanent government is established by the people of Iraq".
	It is our hope that the national conference can be held within the next few weeks. In order to assist the process, and as I told the House last Tuesday, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has appointed a senior British diplomat, John Sawers, our ambassador to Cairo, as the Government's special representative to Iraq. His task is to work with US representatives and a wide range of Iraqi people to ensure an open process leading to a representative Iraqi interim authority. In the few days in which he has been in Baghdad, Mr. Sawers has already met a number of leading Iraqi political figures. In addition, as I told the House last week, we opened a British office in Baghdad, on the site of our former British embassy, headed by a British diplomat, Christopher Segar, who was deputy head of mission when the British embassy in Baghdad closed in 1991.
	Let me now turn to the draft Security Council resolution. The United Kingdom and the United States fully accept our responsibilities under the fourth Geneva convention and the Hague regulations. That point is explicitly recognised in the draft resolution. Neither the Secretary-General nor members of the Security Council are proposing that the UN should run Iraq, but we are all concerned to ensure that the UN plays a vital post-conflict role. The draft resolution gives the UN the full opportunity to do just that. It does not deal with every issue; it concentrates on the main points that need to be settled now for the benefit of the people of Iraq. It sets out important principles for the future of Iraq, including those on territorial integrity and disarmament of its weapons of mass destruction. The resolution also provides, in operative paragraph 5, for member states to prohibit trade in, or transfer of, looted cultural artefacts.
	The three key issues in the resolution are, first, the role of a UN special co-ordinator, and the associated political processes; secondly, the lifting of sanctions and the creation of a new Iraqi assistance fund to target resources on the reconstruction of Iraq; and thirdly, arrangements for the sale of oil and the handling of oil revenues. I shall deal with those in turn.
	Operative paragraph 8 of the resolution sets out a substantial mandate for a UN special co-ordinator to be appointed by the UN Secretary-General and to play a full part in all aspects of post-conflict activity, from humanitarian efforts through economic reconstruction, human rights, rebuilding police capacity, promoting legal and judicial reform, and, crucially, the political process. On the latter point, the draft provides that the special co-ordinator should work with the occupying powers and those assisting them—defined collectively in the resolution as "the Authority"—for
	"the restoration and establishment of national and local institutions for representative governance".
	Operative paragraph 9
	"supports the formation, by the people of Iraq with the help of the Authority and working with the Special Co-ordinator, of an Iraqi interim authority as a transitional administration run by Iraqis until a permanent government is established by the people of Iraq".
	Like all drafts, this one is open to improvement and we are discussing it constructively with our Security Council partners, but the mandate in the present draft will give the UN the scope it needs to play its full role in all aspects of post-conflict Iraq. One of the reasons why I would like to see the resolution passed quickly is to enable a special co-ordinator, appointed by the Secretary-General, to get cracking on the ground very soon.
	The second of the three issues is the lifting of sanctions and the creation of a new Iraqi assistance fund. Economic sanctions relate to Iraq's past and now need to be removed, so operative paragraph 10 provides that all sanctions are lifted forthwith, with the sole exception of the arms embargo, which plainly has to remain in place until a permanent Government is established by the people of Iraq. Ending the economic sanctions regime requires new arrangements for dealing with Iraqi revenues. The wording in the resolution is designed to ensure that all funds from Iraqi oil revenues can be used quickly and effectively for the benefit of the Iraqi people.
	The draft resolution gives the Secretary-General authority for a period of four months from its passage to ensure the delivery of priority civilian goods under contracts already approved and for which funding has been allocated.
	Remaining funds in the existing escrow account, from what is known as the oil-for-food programme, will be transferred to the new Iraqi assistance fund. That will also receive funds from two other sources: revenues from the sale of oil, and funds of the former regime frozen by banks outside Iraq since 1990 under successive Security Council resolutions. The Iraqi assistance fund will therefore rapidly become the primary source of money for the development of Iraq. The funds will be disbursed by the authority in consultation with the Iraqi interim authority.
	The resolution is specific about the purposes for which the money can be spent. Operative paragraph 13 spells out that
	"the funds should be used to meet the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, for the economic reconstruction and repair of Iraq's infrastructure, for the continued disarmament of Iraq, and for the costs of indigenous civilian administration and for other purposes benefiting the people of Iraq."
	The assistance fund will be subject to an international advisory board, including representatives of the UN Secretary-General, the IMF and the World Bank, and will be audited by independent public accountants, again chosen by the board, not by the coalition.
	The third issue is the control of oil sales. Operative paragraph 18 requires that sales shall be made
	"consistent with prevailing international market practices",
	that they too will be audited by independent public accountants reporting to the international advisory board, and that the funds will go to the Iraqi assistance fund, except for a proportion, which will go instead to the UN Compensation Commission for claims relating to the previous Gulf war.
	On weapons of mass destruction, a letter to the Security Council annexed to the resolution stresses the obvious and clear importance of this objective. Dr. Blix himself has recognised that the situation is not right at present for UNMOVIC to return, a point that I was able to spell out in the statement that I made to the House just 13 days ago. Separate arrangements may therefore be needed to provide international validation, so the role of UNMOVIC in Iraq is not an issue that needs to be dealt with in this resolution, although we may need to address it in future resolutions.
	In the interests of the people of Iraq, the sponsors of the resolution will be working for its early adoption, but it is not a take it or leave it text, and negotiations with our partners in the Security Council are already under way. However, from my discussions with Foreign Ministers of Security Council members, and other discussions undertaken by our permanent representative in New York, I find a strong political will to get the UN back into the business of helping to build a better future for Iraq. This draft resolution gives the UN that very important role.

Michael Ancram: I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and for giving me advance sight of it. He has dealt comprehensively with the draft resolution before the Security Council, which we welcome. In particular, we welcome paragraph 11, which seeks to lift sanctions, and paragraph 12, which establishes the Iraqi assistance fund and requires the regime's external assets to be frozen and transferred to it.
	The resolution also deals with the role of the United Nations in the reconstruction of Iraq. I have heard what the Foreign Secretary has had to say on the details but, even so, I am still unclear as to precisely what that role is intended to be. The Prime Minister on 8 April in Northern Ireland referred to "a vital role." However, it is hard to discern any task in the resolution that can really be described as vital.
	May I ask the Foreign Secretary again what he means by vital? This is important today when the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) resigned from the Cabinet because, as she says, the assurances that the Prime Minister gave her
	"about the need for a UN mandate to establish a legitimate Iraqi government have been breached"
	and are contracted by this resolution.
	What were the exact assurances given to the right hon. Lady and other members of the Cabinet on establishing a legitimate Iraqi Government? Are they met in the resolution, and if they are, is the right hon. Lady wrong? If she is right, how does that square with the position of the Prime Minister? Who is telling the truth—the Prime Minister or the right hon. Lady? They cannot both be doing so.
	Did the Attorney-General give the Government advice on what was required to establish a legitimate Iraqi Government? If he did so, does it support the right hon. Lady's contention or the Prime Minister's position? Would it not be helpful to the House if he were to publish that advice?
	On a day when the Government are split on Iraq, warring over the euro and all over the place on foundation hospitals, is it not vital that at least on this, they do not fudge the issue? Does the Foreign Secretary share my regret at this crucial moment that this House will no longer be able to question the Secretary of State for International Development, who will now be in the House of Lords? Is that not a downgrading of this vital portfolio at a most sensitive moment?
	Has the Foreign Secretary read reports today that the taskforce responsible for finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is winding down and is likely to be withdrawn? Is that true, and what does it mean in the light of the Prime Minister's assurances that weapons of mass destruction will be found?
	It is now the fifth week since Saddam was toppled. The unexpectedly swift conclusion explained the immediate aftermath—the lawlessness, breakdown in public services and damage to infrastructure—but, before the war, the Foreign Secretary assured me and this House that plans for post-war Iraq were in place. Why then, after four weeks, are there still not enough police resources, either internal or imported, to maintain public order and disarm the militias? Why, even now, have not enough engineers and construction experts been seconded to Iraq to ensure electricity supplies, clean water and effective sewage disposal? Why is vital aid and health provision still taking so long to get to the areas that so badly need it? These are not military questions, but questions for the Foreign Secretary who told us that all this was in hand. We have a moral obligation to reconstruct Iraq as we promised to do. We have supported the Government on the principle of reconstruction. I have to say that, on the ground, after four weeks, patience is running out.
	Our armed forces won the war brilliantly. It is for the Government to win the peace. They owe it to our forces and to the people of Iraq to do so, and they are not making a very good fist of it right now.

Jack Straw: The right hon. Gentleman asked me a number of questions about the text and also about some comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short). Let me deal with those matters in turn.
	I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for welcoming the statement and the clarification that it gives. He asked me first about the undertakings given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and President Bush at their press conference on 8 April following the Hillsborough summit and about where they are reflected in the resolution itself. The commitment by the President and the Prime Minister is repeated in one of the opening preliminary paragraphs, so that they provide a template against which the rest of the resolution is measured. The paragraph states that it was
	"Resolved that the UN should play a vital role in providing humanitarian relief, in supporting the reconstruction of Iraq, and in helping in the formation of an Iraqi interim authority".
	That is an almost exact paraphrase of the words used by President Bush and our British Prime Minister at Hillsborough. I could take the right hon. Gentleman through the 24 operative paragraphs of the resolution—I hope that the whole House will go through them—which spell out how that will work.
	They include: all the duties that are imposed on the special co-ordinator to be appointed not by us, but by the United Nations Secretary-General; self-evidently, the lifting of sanctions; the future of the oil-for-food programme; the monitoring and supervision that the United Nations will have over Iraqi assistance; the UN's role in respect of oil revenues; and, above all and particularly, assisting and encouraging, alongside the assistance and encouragement of the coalition, the formation—not by the coalition or the UN, but by the Iraqi people themselves—of an Iraqi interim administration followed by a permanent Iraqi Government.
	The right hon. Gentleman asks me about remarks that were made earlier today. I should first say how sad I am about the resignation of my right hon. Friend. She served the Department with very great distinction and placed British overseas aid contribution on the map in a way that never happened in the 18 years of the previous Government, from the moment when they placed the Overseas Development Administration under the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I am sorry to see her leave as a colleague. I have to say—since the right hon. Gentleman asks me this, it is right that I should give him my reply—that I do not agree with my right hon. Friend's view about the position of the Government. Obviously, I was not present at any discussions that took place between her and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—that is a matter for them—but I can say two things.

Michael Ancram: What about the Attorney-General?

Jack Straw: I am going to come to that.
	First, all the measures in the statement and every action that we have taken in Iraq and in the United Nations are fully consistent with the undertakings that we have given in public about the role of the United Nations. Secondly, it goes without saying—but I will repeat it, as the right hon. Gentleman raises the matter—that all the actions that we have taken have been taken strictly in accordance with legal advice. It would be unconscionable for any of us to believe that any action that we took or contemplated would be unlawful in international law or in domestic law, and it is quite inappropriate for the right hon. Gentleman to suggest otherwise.
	The right hon. Gentleman asked several questions about the time that it is taking to get Iraq on its feet—I do not say "back on its feet", because Iraq was not on its feet before the military conflict took place. Yes, it is taking longer than we expected in some parts—not all parts—of Iraq, and, yes, as I said, the situation in Baghdad is unsatisfactory. That is why I welcome the appointment of US ambassador Bremer and the additional staff from the United Kingdom who are going in to back up ORHA. We have to see improved performance on the ground.
	The right hon. Gentleman's last point—an extraordinary one for a Conservative spokesman—was the allegation that a vital Department has been downgraded because a Member of the House of Lords has been appointed as successor to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood. I recall that during our 18 years of opposition there were at least two occasions on which very large and significant Departments of State were represented by a Secretary of State in the other place. One was when the Department of Trade and Industry was under Lord Young, and the other—at a time when the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) was an adornment to that Department—was when Lord Carrington was Foreign Secretary.

Menzies Campbell: In addition to the Foreign Secretary's own expressions of regret, does he understand that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) enjoys great affection and respect on both sides of the House?
	May I ask the Foreign Secretary what significance we are to attach to the recall of Barbara Bodine and to reports that General Garner may soon suffer a similar fate? Does not that indicate an admission of failure to comprehend the complexity of the reconstruction of Iraq; and what sort of signal or message does it give to the people of Iraq if such changes are necessary so quickly?
	On the matter of a vital role for the United Nations, is it not now clear that the Government envisage that that role is one of giving advice and providing co-ordination, but is neither managerial, executive nor administrative? Although it is correct that sanctions should be lifted, why is it necessary to provide new arrangements for the administration of Iraq's oil revenues, as the oil-for-food programme is already in place?
	Finally, on weapons of mass destruction, the Foreign Secretary used a rather delphic phrase when he said that separate arrangements for validation may be necessary. What exactly does he have in mind? Does he have in mind arrangements that will carry credibility because they are not based entirely on the work of those nominated by the coalition forces?

Jack Straw: The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked first about the transfer from Baghdad of ambassador Barbara Bodine and reports of the earlier than expected transfer of former General Jay Garner. The Barbara Bodine transfer is earlier than expected, but, as far as I know, that does not apply to the transfer of General Jay Garner.
	The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked whether there was a failure to comprehend the complexity of the position on the ground. In the case of any military action, the circumstances on the ground are inevitably unexpected to some extent. That is the nature of warfare. In some parts of Iraq, matters have improved more rapidly than expected. However, I have been straightforward about the fact that the position in Baghdad is not satisfactory. We fully understand our responsibilities, as does the United States, to ensure that it becomes satisfactory quickly.
	The right hon. and learned Gentleman claimed that there was no direct managerial role for the United Nations. Under international law, the fourth Geneva convention and the Hague regulations, the occupying power is responsible for managing Iraq in the immediate future. It would be wrong of us to try to hive off responsibility to people who do not have the power to undertake it. However, we are increasingly trying to provide a key role for the United Nations and, above all, the people of Iraq. Hon. Members who are worried about the matter should read the language of the text carefully—I do not suggest that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has not done so. Of course, colleagues on the Security Council have comments about the draft, but the atmosphere in the informal discussions that took place at the weekend was constructive.
	The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked about new arrangements for the oil revenues. They are needed because until now, they were tied into sanctions and the oil revenues were available only for the elaborate and rather bureaucratic oil-for-food programme, which the United Nations has run. We want the oil revenues to be used more widely to benefit the people of Iraq. That will initially have to happen under the direction of the coalition or the occupying powers because there is no one else to do it. However, it will be done under strict supervision and auditing, including by the board with nominees from the Secretary-General, the IMF and the World Bank and, in time, the interim authority. Over time—as quickly as we can manage—that will be done by a separate, permanent, recognised Iraqi Government.
	The right hon. and learned Gentleman's last question was about separate arrangements for validating any finds of weapons of mass destruction. We continue to discuss that matter, not least with our United States allies and other friends on the Security Council. Resolutions 1441 and 1284 remain current and are not affected by the draft resolution. I am clear that any validation arrangements would have to involve external validation for the reasons that the right hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned.

George Foulkes: May I say that I share the Foreign Secretary's view that we have lost a redoubtable Secretary of State for International Development? I served as her deputy for four years and she will be missed in the job. However, she has a worthy successor in Valerie Amos, who was a brilliant Minister in the Foreign Office and will do a tremendous job, whichever House she stays in—[Interruption.]—serves in.
	When was the draft resolution circulated in Whitehall? To which Departments was it sent? What comments did the Foreign and Commonwealth Office receive?

Jack Straw: I share the preliminary comments of my right hon. Friend. So far as Valerie Amos is concerned, I have seen her as a ministerial colleague in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and also answering for the Department for International Development in the House of Lords. She is a brilliant successor to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short), and someone who is very experienced. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) might recall that, when the previous Conservative Administration were in power years ago, it was possible to give up a title to a peerage in order to transfer down to this end, but I am afraid that a life peerage is now exactly that; it is a sentence for life. But that might change; you never know.
	So far as the draft of the resolution is concerned, it was dealt with internally in the same way as resolution 1441 was dealt with. It was tightly held because we were discussing the details with a fellow member of the Security Council. In answer to my right hon. Friend's question, I orally briefed the Cabinet last Thursday—the Cabinet Committee was orally briefed by me last Thursday afternoon—and the draft was circulated at 9 o'clock the following morning.

Edward Garnier: Beyond the cost of the military engagement itself, can the Foreign Secretary tell us what the estimated cost of the British involvement and presence in Iraq will be for this financial year and the next financial year?

Jack Straw: No, I cannot, but I will arrange for the answer to that question to be provided to the hon. and learned Gentleman, and for a copy to be made available to the House.

Tam Dalyell: Whatever the virtues of Lady Amos, at this particular moment the Secretary of State for International Development ought to be in this House and not in the other place.
	Can the House of Commons be told why documents held by the Iraqi authorities at the time of the coalition's control of their offices were left unprotected, to be exploited by journalists and others, when those documents might have formed the basis for a prosecution, or been collected or destroyed to deny the probability of a prosecution, or gone unchecked for the insertion of forged documents? Why was there no proper custody of documents of such major potential importance, which might have thrown light on the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction, or on possible links between the Saddam regime and al-Qaeda?

Jack Straw: On the appointment of my right hon. Friend Baroness Amos, I think that everybody in the House recognises her exceptional qualities. [Interruption.] It is an exceptional appointment. I have said before that, while there may be some reservations on the Labour and Liberal Democrat Benches about having a Secretary of State appointed from the House of Lords, it does not lie in the mouth of Conservative Members to object to that process for a second. Many of us accepted the arrangements under which Foreign Secretaries and Trade and Industry Secretaries were Members of the other place. Perfectly satisfactory arrangements were made for them to answer through a Minister in this place, and the Prime Minister will make such arrangements in respect of the Department for International Development.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) also asked about the protection of evidence and the custody of documents. I cannot give him a direct answer to his specific question, but I can say that we are all seized of the need to protect all documentary and other evidence as far as is humanly possible, with a view to its use in future prosecutions of people responsible for the brutalities of the Saddam regime. If my hon. Friend is in any doubt about the evidence relating to Iraq's holdings of weapons of mass destruction, I refer him to two very public Command Papers that I have already published, including 173 pages of Dr. Blix's final report of 7 March, which sets out in forensic detail the nature of Iraq's holdings of weapons of mass destruction and its failure to answer questions about what has happened to those holdings.

Nicholas Soames: While we are all pleased to hear that progress is being made at the UN, is the Foreign Secretary aware that the situation in Baghdad, which he is only partly right in describing as serious, is in fact potentially catastrophic; that our American friends, after a stunning military victory, have grossly underestimated the very difficult situation that they face; and that extremely heavy-handed policing by American troops will do nothing to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis for as long as there is poor security, the utilities do not work or even look like working, and there has clearly been no real progress on the civilian administration front?
	Ambassador Bremer is an extremely competent diplomat, but it may not be enough that he will be the right person to run things. Would it not be sensible to suggest to our American friends that a British brigade should be put into Baghdad, as it would have much greater expertise at such policing, with a view to moving the whole thing forward much more quickly?

Jack Straw: The hon. Gentleman is correct to raise concerns about conditions in Baghdad. I do not endorse the specific language that he uses, but I have made it clear that we regard the situation there as unsatisfactory. Our American allies and friends fully understand that it is unsatisfactory, that action has urgently to be taken and that they are in the lead on taking such action. Just before I came across to the House, I discussed that situation, as I do regularly, with the United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and I shall continue to engage with him on that, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will with President Bush.
	On the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that a British brigade should be put in, we are all very proud of how British troops have operated, not only in the conflict, but post-conflict, and I shall refer it to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence.

Hugh Bayley: May I associate myself with the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) about my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short)?
	What obligations are there on the interim Iraqi administration and what obligations will there be on the full Iraqi Government to repay debts—some would say odious debts—incurred by the Saddam regime? Can my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary give the House an assurance that the Iraqi assistance fund may not be used to repay the cost of weapons buying by Saddam's regime and that he will resist pressure from, as well as the case that may be being made by, other Security Council members which are owed large sums of money by the Saddam regime for arms to block or resist a further Security Council resolution until they are repaid? We must consider the needs of the Iraqi people first, and I hope that that is what the Government will take to the Security Council.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Before the Foreign Secretary answers, I have to tell the House that I must have brief questions. We cannot have long questions.

Jack Straw: I accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley), and I say to him that in the text, not least in operational paragraph 20, there is legal protection against, for example, revenues from the sale of oil, or the physical product of oil itself, being arrested in a third country to provide security for unpaid debts to third parties, which may include some countries that he has in mind. We are certainly seized of that. At the same time, we are also seized of the need to ensure that some compensation claims—for example, in relation to those in Kuwait—are honoured over time.

Andrew Mitchell: Does the right hon. Gentleman understand why there is some scepticism on the Conservative Benches as to why he chose to make this statement today? For example, can he tell the House whether he was planning to make it at 9 o'clock this morning? Will he give the House a straight answer to the question posed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) from the Front Bench as to what we are to make of the statement of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) that the Prime Minister's assurance on the establishment of a legitimate Government in Iraq has been breached?

Jack Straw: As it happens, I decided on Saturday that it would probably be a good idea to make a statement to the House. One was drafted. I spoke to the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip on the telephone yesterday, and suggested that I should make a statement. However, as ever with statements, we decided to wait until this morning to see whether there was a clear demand for one. As it turns out, there was such a demand.
	I do my very best to keep the House informed of these matters, as I have done previously.
	As for the other point that the hon. Gentleman raised, I am afraid that I disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood (Clare Short). The undertakings given by the Prime Minister at Hillsborough and elsewhere are reflected in this draft in every particular.

Tom Harris: I am sure that my right hon. Friend will have welcomed the comments from the French and German ambassadors to the United Nations. The French ambassador said:
	"There are positive elements in this draft resolution in the humanitarian and economic field",
	and the German ambassador said that
	"this draft does not fight the fights of the past but is looking to the future and trying to deal with the problems that are at hand now".
	In welcoming an emerging UN consensus on this issue, will the Foreign Secretary reassure the House that the United Kingdom's commitment to the immediate lifting of sanctions will not be allowed to be diluted in the negotiations on this draft that are to follow?

Jack Straw: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the welcome that this draft has received publicly in those quarters, which would have been unexpected a few weeks ago. We have worked hard with our partners. We are not suggesting that this is the final word on the matter, but we are pleased about the constructive atmosphere in which the negotiations are taking place.
	As for the lifting of sanctions, they were imposed because of the bad behaviour of the Saddam regime and its failure to comply. Now that the Saddam regime has gone, the case for sanctions goes. However, that does not remove the case for us to be satisfied about the disarmament of Iraq, which is another matter.

John Maples: Baghdad fell into coalition hands on 9 April, and fighting was over five days later on 14 April. After an unexplained delay of two weeks, General Garner finally arrived in Baghdad following his leisurely progress via Kurdistan on 21 April. Five weeks after the fall of Baghdad, there is apparently still no water in large areas of the city. Does the Foreign Secretary understand that many of us, and no doubt many Iraqis, find it incomprehensible that with a magnificent display of military competence we can win the war in four weeks but we cannot get the water switched back on in five?

Jack Straw: I understand the hon. Gentleman's frustration. As I said, the situation in Baghdad is not satisfactory. He asks what we are doing about it. We are doing a great deal to turn it around.

Jeremy Corbyn: What is the legal basis for contracts that the Americans signed with Halliburton and Bechtel before the offer of this new UN resolution? Is not the world's image of what is happening that in reality it is the creation of an American colony in Iraq with British support?

Jack Straw: As I understand it, the legal basis of those contracts was US domestic law, because they made use of US tax dollars and not of any Iraqi revenues. The use of Iraqi revenues in that way would be outwith international or domestic law.

Peter Tapsell: Does the Foreign Secretary understand that there will be a widespread feeling on both sides of the House that in the months ahead the Secretary of State for International Development ought to be a Member of this House and answerable to us? As the United States is in the process of dismissing its two most senior administrators in Iraq, and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) has just resigned, on whose expert advice is this draft resolution based? Presumably, it is on the basis of the draft resolution that the British Government will try to put things right in Iraq in the weeks ahead?

Jack Straw: Highly qualified though those three people are, they are not the only source of advice available to the United States and United Kingdom Governments.

Ian Lucas: Is my right hon. Friend aware of early-day motion 946, signed by 106 hon. Members, which calls for the reconstruction of Iraq to be built on the broadest possible base? Does he accept that that can be achieved only by securing for the United Nations a leading role in the reconstruction of Iraq? Will he agree to include that amendment to the draft resolution?

Jack Straw: I am not familiar with the full text of early-day motion 946. I apologise for that, and I shall look it up. The leading role in the rebuilding or building of the new Iraq must be taken by the people of Iraq. We seek a partnership in support of that between the United Nations international community and the coalition on the ground.

Elfyn Llwyd: May I associate myself fully with what the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) said about the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short)?
	I welcome the reference to lifting sanctions, but the statement unfortunately made no mention of the Kurdish people. What consideration has been given to preserving the integrity of the northern lands where they currently reside?

Jack Straw: Every consideration is given to that. The very first preliminary paragraph of the draft resolution reaffirms the commitment of all member states to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq. Within that, we fully recognise and respect the need for proper autonomy for various peoples in Iraq, including, obviously, the Kurdish people.

Gerald Kaufman: Will my right hon. Friend explain how giving Iraq back to the people of Iraq is accomplished by transferring the governance of Iraq to a crony of Donald Rumsfeld, and handing over a contract to a company with which Donald Rumsfeld has been associated? Does he accept that Members who voted in favour of military action did not do so, and the British forces who behaved with such immense decency and dignity did not risk and in some cases give their lives, to turn Iraq into a colony of the United States Republican party and to turn Iraq's reconstruction into the playground of American corporate capitalism?

Jack Straw: I understand my right hon. Friend's concerns, but I can give him the reassurance that he seeks. In the initial stages, the authority will be that of the United States and United Kingdom Governments and nation states as the "occupying power" under the Geneva conventions and the Hague regulations. I think I have already dealt with the issue of the contract let to Halliburton. It was, I understand, a domestic contract in the United States, to be paid for with US tax dollars. I can reassure my right hon. Friend that the oil revenues of Iraq and other revenues of the Iraqi people must be used and administered in a very different way.

Henry Bellingham: Will the Foreign Secretary turn his attention to the many UK reserve medical personnel who are still deployed in the Gulf? Many were released from NHS trusts and hospitals where there is great pressure on waiting lists. To what extent are those medical facilities available to the Iraqi people? Has the Foreign Secretary thought of asking our European counterparts whether they might be able to send substitute personnel, so that some of those professionals could be released back into the health service here?

Jack Straw: I shall have to write to the hon. Gentleman about the detail of his question, and place a copy of my answer in the Library of the House. As for his wider point, we have been involved in detailed discussions with our European Union partners and others about the contributions that they can make to the military forces and to other facilities. As the hon. Gentleman may know, meetings were held during the force contribution conference on two successive Fridays. A number of EU member countries are contributing to medical facilities as well as to the military forces.

Ann Clwyd: I agree with my right hon. Friend that the humanitarian problem was compounded, not created, by the war. Nevertheless, I think that the situation is serious and should not be underestimated. Anyone who, over the weekend, heard the aid agencies talking about the situation in Baghdad and elsewhere can only feel alarmed by their reports.
	I ask my right hon. Friend to increase the number of British staff in Iraq. I think he mentioned the number 40, but that is not enough. I know four of the five interim leaders of Iraq, and they are all calling for more British involvement because they believe that the British understand them much better than the Americans and can handle the population much better.
	Will my right hon. Friend's Department please be much more sensitive? When it sent delegates to the conference in Baghdad, the one woman whom it sent was the one woman from the Iraqi community in Britain who opposed the war and demonstrated against it. That, I think, is entirely the wrong signal to give all the other Iraqi expatriates in Britain.

Jack Straw: I accept what my hon. Friend says. On the issue of increasing the number of United Kingdom staff, I know that that will be at the top of the agenda of Baroness Amos, the new Secretary of State for International Development. I take my hon. Friend's point, although, since we are trying to create a democratic Iraq, it is important that we have people of every opinion. However, many of them should reflect what was a very widespread opinion—that the military action that we took was entirely justified.

Martin Smyth: On behalf of many of my constituents and others in Northern Ireland, I join in paying tribute to the work of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short).
	May I press the Secretary of State? Is there any news about the missing billion that Saddam's family seem to have gone off with? Since the war was to free the Iraqi people, can he give an assurance that, in the long-term planning, there will be a greater role for the women of Iraq and free elections with a wider electorate than has hitherto been allowed?

Jack Straw: On the first point that the hon. Gentleman raises, there are quite substantial sums in bank accounts, which have been frozen. Obviously, we know where those are. Investigations continue in respect of reports of billions of US dollars being taken out of the country by the Saddam family and regime just before military action commenced. On the role of women, we are very committed indeed to seeing women play a full role in the Iraqi Government, as we are in this country.

John Denham: I welcome my right hon. Friend's commitment that the resolution may still be amended but does he accept that, around the world, many people with whom we would wish to be influential friends still question the legitimacy and motives of the action that was taken? Would it not be in this country's long-term interests to ensure that the UN is given a sufficiently strong role in the reconstruction of Iraq to provide that legitimacy for our future actions?

Jack Straw: I accept that there are people who still question the legitimacy of our action. I hope that we deal with that and provide reassurance in the draft resolution. Just to take one example, there are people around the world who believed, and may still believe, that the sole purpose of the military action was in order that the United Kingdom and United States could steal the Iraqis' oil. It was always totally and completely untrue; it was utterly untrue. However, for the avoidance of doubt, the resolution, a mandatory chapter 7 resolution, makes it clear that the revenues from oil and from other sources of the Iraqi people can only be used for the benefit of the Iraqi people, or to compensate other victims of the Saddam regime.

Personal Statement

Clare Short: With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a personal statement.
	I have decided to resign from the Government. I think it is right that I should explain my reasons to the House of Commons, to which I have been accountable as Secretary of State for International Development, a post that I have been deeply honoured to hold and that I am very sad to leave.
	The House will be aware that I had many criticisms of the way in which events leading up to the conflict in Iraq were handled. I offered my resignation to the Prime Minister on a number of occasions but was pressed by him and others to stay. I have been attacked from many different angles for that decision but I still think that, hard as it was, it was the right thing to do.
	The reason why I agreed to remain in the Government was that it was too late to put right the mistakes that had been made. I had throughout taken the view that it was necessary to be willing to contemplate the use of force to back up the authority of the UN. The regime was brutal, the people were suffering, our Attorney-General belatedly but very firmly said there was legal authority for the use of force, and because the official Opposition were voting with the Government, the conflict was unavoidable. [Interruption.] There is no question about that. It had to carry.
	I decided that I should not weaken the Government at that time and should agree to the Prime Minister's request to stay and lead the UK humanitarian and reconstruction effort. However, the problem now is that the mistakes that were made in the period leading up to the conflict are being repeated in the post-conflict situation. In particular, the UN mandate, which is necessary to bring into being a legitimate Iraqi Government, is not being supported by the UK Government. This, I believe, is damaging to Iraq's prospects, will continue to undermine the authority of the UN and directly affects my work and responsibilities.
	The situation in Iraq under international law is that the coalition are occupying powers in occupied territory. Under the Geneva convention of 1949 and the Hague regulations of 1907, the coalition has clear responsibilities and clear limits to its authority. It is obliged to attend to the humanitarian needs of the population, to keep order—to keep order—and to keep civil administration operating. The coalition is legally entitled to modify the operation of the administration as much as is necessary to fulfil these obligations, but it is not entitled to make major political, economic and constitutional changes. The coalition does not have sovereign authority and has no authority to bring into being an interim Iraqi Government with such authority or to create a constitutional process leading to the election of a sovereign Government. The only body that has the legal authority to do this is the United Nations Security Council.
	I believe that it is the duty of all responsible political leaders right across the world—whatever view they took on the launch of the war—to focus on reuniting the international community in order to support the people of Iraq in rebuilding their country, to re-establish the authority of the UN and to heal the bitter divisions that preceded the war. I am sorry to say that the UK Government are not doing this. They are supporting the US in trying to bully the Security Council into a resolution that gives the coalition the power to establish an Iraqi Government and control the use of oil for reconstruction, with only a minor role for the UN.
	This resolution is unlikely to pass but, if it does, it will not create the best arrangements for the reconstruction of Iraq. The draft resolution risks continuing international divisions, Iraqi resentment against the occupying powers and the possibility that the coalition will get bogged down in Iraq.I believe that the UK should and could have respected the Attorney-General's advice, told the US that this was a red line for us, and worked for international agreement to a proper, UN-led process to establish an interim Iraqi Government—just as was done in Afghanistan.
	I believe that this would have been an honourable and wise role for the UK and that the international community would have united around this position. It is also in the best interests of the United States. Both in both the run-up to the war and now, I think the UK is making grave errors in providing cover for US mistakes rather than helping an old friend, which is understandably hurt and angry after the events of 11 September, to honour international law and the authority of the UN. American power alone cannot make America safe. Of course, we must all unite to dismantle the terrorist networks, and, through the UN, the world is doing this. But undermining international law and the authority of the UN creates a risk of instability, bitterness and growing terrorism that will threaten the future for all of us.
	I am ashamed that the UK Government have agreed the resolution that has been tabled in New York and shocked by the secrecy and lack of consultation with Departments with direct responsibility for the issues referred to in the resolution. I am afraid that this resolution undermines all the commitments I have made in the House and elsewhere about how the reconstruction of Iraq will be organised. Clearly this makes my position impossible and I have no alternative but to resign from the Government.
	There will be time on other occasions to spell out the details of these arguments and to discuss the mistakes that were made preceding the conflict. But I hope that I have provided enough detail to indicate the seriousness of the issues at stake for the future of Iraq, the role of the UN, the unity of the international community and Britain's place in the world.
	All this makes me very sad. I believe that the Government whom I have served since 1997 have a record of which all who share the values of the Labour party can be proud. I also believe that the UK commitment to international development is crucial. The levels of poverty and inequality in a world rich in knowledge, technology and capital is the biggest moral issue the world faces and the biggest threat to the future safety and security of the world. We have achieved a lot, and taking a lead on development is a fine role for the UK. There is much left to do and I am very sorry to have been put in a position in which I am unable to continue that work.
	I do think, however, that the errors that we are making over Iraq and other recent initiatives flow not from Labour's values, but from the style and organisation of our Government, which is undermining trust and straining party loyalty in a way that is completely unnecessary. In our first term, the problem was spin: endless announcements, exaggerations and manipulation of the media that undermined people's respect for the Government and trust in what we said. It was accompanied by a control-freak style that has created many of the problems of excessive bureaucracy and centralised targets that are undermining the success of our public sector reforms.
	In the second term, the problem is the centralisation of power into the hands of the Prime Minister and an increasingly small number of advisers who make decisions in private without proper discussion. It is increasingly clear, I am afraid, that the Cabinet has become, in Bagehot's phrase, a dignified part of the constitution—joining the Privy Council. There is no real collective responsibility because there is no collective; just diktats in favour of increasingly badly thought through policy initiatives that come from on high.
	The consequences of that are serious. Expertise in our system lies in Departments. Those who dictate from the centre do not have full access to that expertise and do not consult. That leads to bad policy. In addition, under our constitutional arrangements, legal, political and financial responsibility flows through Secretaries of State to Parliament. Increasingly, those who are wielding power are not accountable and not scrutinised. Thus we have the powers of a presidential-type system with the automatic majority of a parliamentary system. My conclusion is that those arrangements are leading to increasingly poor policy initiatives being rammed through Parliament, which is straining and abusing party loyalty and undermining the people's respect for our political system.
	Those attitudes are also causing increasing problems with reform of the public services. I do believe that after long years of financial cuts and decline, the public services need reform to improve the quality of services and the morale of public sector workers—the two being inextricably linked. We do not, however, need endless new initiatives, layers of bureaucratic accountability and diktats from the centre. We need clarity of purpose, decentralisation of authority and improved management of people. We need to treasure and honour the people who work in public service. As I found in my former Department, if public servants are given that framework, they work with dedication and pride and provide a service that, in the case of the Department for International Development, is known throughout the world as one of the finest development agencies in the international system. Those lessons could be applied in other parts of the public service.
	I have two final points. The first is for the Labour party and, especially, the parliamentary Labour party. As I have said, there is much that our Government have achieved that reflects Labour's values and of which we can be very proud, but we are entering rockier times and we must work together to prevent our Government from departing from the best values of our party. To the Prime Minister, I would say that he has achieved great things since 1997 but, paradoxically, he is in danger of destroying his legacy as he becomes increasingly obsessed by his place in history.
	Finally, I am desperately sad to leave the Department for International Development. I apologise to those in the developing world who told me that I had a duty to stay. I shall continue to do all that I can to support the countries and institutions with which I have been working. It has been an enormous honour to lead the Department. It is a very fine organisation of which Britain can be proud. We have achieved a lot but there is much left to do, and I am sure that others will take it forward. I hope that the House and party will protect the Department from those who wish to weaken it.

Points of Order

Eric Forth: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is there anything that you can do, even at this late stage, to protect today's business? You will be aware that we were already in the unacceptable position of being asked to process all stages of an important and potentially controversial Bill, which will affect democracy in part of our United Kingdom, between 3.30 pm and 10 pm.
	Yet today, Mr. Speaker, with the usual casual attitude that the Government have sadly shown towards Parliament and this House of Commons, a statement was put on which, however important, was not that urgent, thus reducing further the time that we have to consider the Bill at hand. Can nothing be done even now to give the House more time—proper time—to perform a Second Reading, a Committee stage and a Third Reading of a Bill that is of the greatest importance for our democracy in this United Kingdom, so that we can properly consider it? The Government's attitude to this House of Commons has become unacceptable, and the casual and deliberate placing of a statement on a day such as this, further to reduce our opportunity to examine legislation, is the latest regrettable example of that. Please, Mr. Speaker, what can be done?

Mr. Speaker: I think the right hon. Gentleman's main complaint is about the statement by the Foreign Secretary, not the statement by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short). As Speaker, I have no say in those matters. When a Minister says that he wishes to come before the House to make a statement, I have to accept that statement and the House has to hear it. However, the right hon. Gentleman will have noticed that I did not run the statement for a full hour, but for 40 minutes, with the clear understanding that we have other business before us. The right hon. Gentleman asks, "Can anything be done?"; the answer is, not by me.

William Cash: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. Gentleman have a point of order?

William Cash: I have a point of order on the personal statement, Mr. Speaker. On 10 April, I raised a point of order on whether the Secretary of State for International Development would publish, as she could have done at her discretion, the advice of the Attorney-General, as the Prime Minister did on the legality of the war against Iraq in reply to a question that I put to him earlier. In her statement, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) referred to the fact that it would have been better had the Prime Minister accepted the Attorney-General's advice. She could have used the ministerial discretion to publish that advice. My point of order is that that advice could still be made available and should be placed in the House of Commons as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker: Once again, that is not a matter for me. It is for Ministers to decide whether they put that advice into the public domain.

Stuart Bell: On a point of order on a matter that relates to you and of which you are fully aware, Mr. Speaker. The number of hon. Members who read questions at Question Time is obvious to me, the House and yourself. It is my understanding that questions should not be read and should be given, if you like, from the heart. I am sure that you would wish to remind all hon. Members that we are not here to read out questions, but should put our questions to the Secretary of State or the Minister and wait for an adequate reply.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is quite right. Supplementary questions should not be read from notes. Hon. Members sometimes use aids, but I would not encourage that practice. The hon. Gentleman is right that questions should be asked without notes.

Ian Paisley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Surely this is an unusual occasion because we are to discuss something—the right of people to exercise their franchise—that does not come before the House except, perhaps, once in a century. Surely the Government should have respect for this day and, given the very little time that we have, protect it. Although we appreciate that you gave only 40 minutes for the Foreign Secretary's statement and did not call everyone who stood, as a representative in this House of people from Northern Ireland, I find it an insult to them that, in this mother of Parliaments, we should have time taken away from our discussion of something that cuts across the root and foundation of democracy.

Mr. Speaker: I can understand the hon. Gentleman's concern, but at the risk of repeating myself, it is for me to ensure that the rules of the House are carried out. I do not make the rules of the House; the House makes the rules and I am the custodian of the rules. However, I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's comments.

Peter Bottomley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In what circumstances is eavesdropping by official agencies on Members of Parliament's telephone conversations allowed?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for me.

Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections and Periods of Suspension) Bill (Allocation of Time)

Paul Murphy: I beg to move,
	That the following provisions shall apply to the proceedings on the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections and Periods of Suspension) Bill—
	Timetable
	1. Proceedings on Second Reading, in Committee, on consideration and on Third Reading shall be completed at this day's sitting and shall be brought to a conclusion, if not previously concluded, at Ten o'clock.
	Timing of proceedings and Questions to be put
	2. When the Bill has been read a second time—
	(a) it shall, notwithstanding Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of bills), stand committed to a Committee of the whole House without any Question being put;
	(b) proceedings on the Bill shall stand postponed while the Question is put, in accordance with paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 52 (Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with bills), on any financial resolution relating to the Bill;
	(c) on the conclusion of proceedings on any financial resolution relating to the Bill, proceedings on the Bill shall be resumed and the Speaker shall leave the Chair whether or not notice of an Instruction has been given.
	3. On the conclusion of proceedings in Committee the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without putting any Question and, if the Bill is reported with amendments, the House shall proceed to consider the Bill as amended without any Question being put.
	4. For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 1 the Speaker or Chairman shall forthwith put the following Questions (but no others)—
	(a) any Question already proposed from the Chair;
	(b) any Question necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed;
	(c) the Question on any amendment moved or Motion made by a Minister of the Crown;
	(d) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded.
	5. On a Motion so made for a new Clause or a new Schedule, the Chairman or Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.
	Consideration of Lords Amendments
	6.—(1) Any Lords Amendments to the Bill shall be considered forthwith without any Question being put.
	(2) Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall be brought to a conclusion, if not previously concluded, one hour after their commencement.
	7.—(1) This paragraph applies for the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 6.
	(2) The Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question already proposed from the Chair and not yet decided.
	(3) If that Question is for the amendment of a Lords Amendment the Speaker shall then put forthwith—
	(a) a single Question on any further Amendments to the Lords Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown, and
	(b) the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House agrees or disagrees to the Lords Amendment or (as the case may be) to the Lords Amendment as amended.
	(4) The Speaker shall then put forthwith—
	(a) a single Question on any Amendments moved by a Minister of the Crown to a Lords Amendment, and
	(b) the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House agrees or disagrees to the Lords Amendment or (as the case may be) to the Lords Amendment as amended.
	(5) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House disagrees to a Lords Amendment.
	(6) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question, That this House agrees to all the remaining Lords Amendments.
	(7) As soon as the House has agreed or disagreed to a Lords Amendment, or disposed of an Amendment relevant to a Lords Amendment which has been disagreed to, the Speaker shall put forthwith a single Question on any Amendments moved by a Minister of the Crown and relevant to the Lords Amendment.
	Subsequent stages
	8.—(1) Any further Message from the Lords on the Bill shall be considered forthwith without any Question being put.
	(2) Proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.
	9.—(1) This paragraph applies for the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 8.
	(2) The Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has already been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided.
	(3) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown which is related to the Question already proposed from the Chair.
	(4) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown on or relevant to any of the remaining items in the Lords Message.
	(5) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question, That this House agrees with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Proposals.
	Reasons Committee
	10.—(1) The Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the appointment, nomination and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons in relation to the Bill and the appointment of its Chairman.
	(2) A Committee appointed to draw up Reasons shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which it is appointed.
	(3) Proceedings in the Committee shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion 30 minutes after their commencement.
	(4) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with sub-paragraph (3) the Chairman shall—
	(a) first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the Chair but not yet decided, and
	(b) then put forthwith successively Questions on motions which may be made by a Minister of the Crown for assigning a Reason for disagreeing with the Lords in any of their Amendments.
	(5) The proceedings of the Committee shall be reported without any further Question being put.
	Miscellaneous
	11. Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 15 (Exempted business) shall apply to any proceedings to which this Order applies.
	12. The proceedings on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement and paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 15 shall apply to those proceedings.
	13. Standing Order No. 82 (Business Committee) shall not apply in relation to any proceedings to which this Order applies.
	14. No Motion shall be made to alter the order in which any proceedings on the Bill are taken or to re-commit the Bill.
	15. No dilatory Motion shall be made in relation to proceedings to which this Order applies except by a Minister of the Crown; and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
	16.—(1) This paragraph applies if—
	(a) a Motion for the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 24 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) has been stood over to Seven o'clock, Three o'clock or Four o'clock (as the case may be), but
	(b) proceedings to which this Order applies have begun before then.
	(2) Proceedings on that Motion shall stand postponed until the conclusion of those proceedings.
	17. If the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before the conclusion of any proceedings to which this Order applies, no notice shall be required of a Motion made at the next sitting by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.
	18. Proceedings to which this Order applies shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
	In a moment, I shall explain the urgency with which the Government are seeking to progress the Bill and why it is necessary to take it through all its stages in the House today. However, before I do so, I am sure that the whole House will join me in condemning the cowardly attack carried out this morning on the offices of the Ulster Unionist party in Belfast. An explosive device was delivered to the offices in a clear attempt to kill or to maim. Fortunately, no one was hurt in the incident, but it is a salutary reminder to us all of what we are trying to achieve in Northern Ireland. Attacks such as that and the one some weeks ago on the offices of the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Dodds) only make us more determined to achieve a complete and unambiguous end to paramilitary activity.
	In my statement to the House last Tuesday evening, I explained the Government's assessment of the current state of political developments in Northern Ireland and the reasons for our conclusion that the elections to the Assembly due on 29 May should be postponed. It would not be appropriate to dwell in detail on those reasons in the debate on this motion. Hon. Members will have an opportunity later to debate the Government's analysis and policy more fully, and I intend to address those issues in my speech in that debate. Suffice it to say that the decision to seek a postponement was taken—with regret—on the basis that it is clear that without a clear and unambiguous end to paramilitary activity, there cannot be a revival of the trust and confidence necessary for the restoration of the devolved institutions.
	There are two reasons why I am seeking the House's agreement to the motion. The first is that our decision to seek the postponement was taken only after weeks—indeed, months—of intensive negotiations aimed at securing acts of completion from paramilitaries and a common understanding of the basis on which the devolved institutions could be restored. As the House well knows, the Government have already sought one four-week postponement of the election date in order to try to facilitate that process. We naturally wished to give those efforts every chance of succeeding, so it was with great regret that we reluctantly concluded on 1 May that we had reached a point where there was no longer any prospect of the necessary trust and confidence being established in time for restoration of the institutions following an election on 29 May.
	Now that we have reached that conclusion, no one will benefit from continuing uncertainty about the legal status of the scheduled election. The Northern Ireland electorate deserve clarity as soon as it can be given, and the Northern Ireland political parties are, naturally, anxious to know how the Government propose to deal with a range of consequences of the postponement, from the question of reimbursement of electoral expenses incurred to the implications for the funding of party offices. They deserve certainty and clarity as soon as possible. We have worked to produce the Bill as fast as we can in order to provide that.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: I appreciate many of the problems that my right hon. Friend outlines, but given that the issue is fundamental and there will be nowhere other than the House of Commons to debate democracy in Northern Ireland, why is it necessary to timetable the Bill?

Paul Murphy: I shall address that issue as soon as I can.

Andrew MacKinlay: It relates to the motion.

Paul Murphy: I am aware of that. I shall come to that point in a second.
	The second argument for dealing with the business under the terms of this timetable motion is the electoral timetable itself. The Assembly was dissolved on 28 April; at that point the statutory electoral timetable began to run. Nominations have already closed, and as the polling date currently set in law draws near, preparations have to be made for an election unless Parliament determines otherwise. That of course is quite proper, but it makes no sense to incur additional expense or to prolong uncertainty for any longer than is necessary. The Bill to deal with those matters therefore had to be dealt with today.

Eric Forth: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that part of his argument, which may or may not convince the House. However, why do we have to finish at 10 o'clock tonight? Even if it was necessary for the reasons given by the right hon. Gentleman that the matter be dispatched in the House today, that is no reason why we must truncate all stages of the Bill. We have not yet started consideration of the measure at nearly 5 o'clock in the afternoon, when we shall finish arbitrarily at 10 o'clock. Why cannot we continue to deal with the Bill after 10 o'clock, in proper consideration and detail?

Paul Murphy: The right hon. Gentleman knows that I am not responsible for dealing with the workings of the House. However—

Andrew MacKinlay: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Paul Murphy: No, I will not.
	For the proposed legislation to go through the House this week, and through the House of Lords, where generally speaking legislation has to take two days, and in the event of messages coming back from the House of Lords, it was necessary for us to deal with the Bill in the way that we have.

Andrew MacKinlay: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Paul Murphy: I will not.
	For these simple reasons, I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will agree that a compressed timetable for the Bill's passage through the House, while regrettable, is unavoidable in these circumstances.

Quentin Davies: First, I echo what the Secretary of State has just said about the attack on the offices of the Ulster Unionist party. Thank God no one has been hurt. It is an unacceptable and shocking event. Everybody who stands for public office in Northern Ireland lives against the background of a potential threat. They are all particularly brave men and women. I have come to admire them all in all the parties that are represented in this place in the course of the two years that I have been doing this job. Many of them have had, on occasion, to resist serious intimidation. Many of them have experienced attacks on their own homes and properties. The most recent attack is just one more such incident.
	I am sure that the House hopes that the Police Service of Northern Ireland will be able to apprehend the culprits as soon as possible, and that the courts will handle them in an exemplary fashion if, indeed, anybody is found guilty of the attack. In the meantime, on behalf of the Opposition, I extend my concern and sympathy to the UUP and to all those people who work in the UUP's offices, which have been under attack, and to express my confidence and assurance that once again these brave men and women will not allow themselves to be deflected by this utterly contemptible act.
	I turn to the situation that has been opened up by the exchanges during the statement on Iraq, which were eloquently confirmed in the memorable critique of the moral and ethical basis on which government has been conducted by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short). I think that we have reached a new depth of cynicism in the management of our affairs when we are told of the difficulties—we shall come on to them in a moment—about an election that the Government want to call off but which has already started.
	We are told that there is so little time and so much urgency that Parliament cannot have even two days to debate the measure, which the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) asked for last week. It is inexplicable that Parliament—we have had no explanation in response to the question of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), the shadow Leader of the House—cannot even sit beyond 10 o'clock. There is so little time that we are told that we must timetable consideration of the Bill. Then we are told—it has been dramatically revealed this afternoon—that the Government have been caught in the most distasteful, mean and snivelling type of trick, which is to bring forward a statement on Iraq, which was unscheduled, merely to try to push the statement made by the right hon. Member for Ladywood further down the headlines. That really is a depth of cynicism.
	I do not think that anything that I can say on this subject would be so convincing, so eloquent, so memorable and so likely to stand in the record for an extremely long time as the words that we have heard from the right hon. Lady.

Patrick McLoughlin: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Secretary of State used a rather strange set of words when he said that his understanding of the necessity for today's timetable was that the other place needed two days in which to consider legislation? Is the Secretary of State telling us that an unelected House can have two days to discuss legislation, but that the elected House of Commons can have only a day's debate? Is that not a disgraceful statement from a Secretary of State?

Quentin Davies: I fear that that is precisely what the Government are telling us—indeed, it is the only possible interpretation. They are telling us that they have a majority of 200 in the Commons, so they can do anything that they like here. They can overturn the procedures of the House and its Standing Orders any time that they see fit.

Eric Forth: And they do.

Quentin Davies: Indeed, they have done so, as my right hon. Friend says, both on this occasion and countless other occasions. Poor Northern Ireland, however, has been the victim recently. An emergency Bill was introduced in March to postpone the elections, we thought, by a month. The Government, for reasons that we shall no doubt go into later, decided that they wanted more time. They have not actually said how much more time they want, so they introduced a new Bill simply to postpone the elections indefinitely. They think that they can get away with that—they think that they can get away with anything. If we do not do something about that, the situation will continue for, I fear, two years. I hope that over that period the Government will experience a sense of guilt and that a residual democratic conscience will be awakened in them. However, I can see no trace of that whatsoever, and I fear that Parliament is being abused so systematically that, after two Parliaments with a massive Labour majority, it will emerge with its credibility permanently eroded and its procedures taken much less seriously by the electorate, who will have less faith in them as objective procedures on which they can rely or which demonstrate the basis on which public business is done here. That is deplorable, and I share the sentiments of my hon. Friends and, I am sure, many Members on both sides of the House, about today's state of affairs. As I have said, those sentiments were eloquently expressed by the right hon. Member for, Ladywood.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You will be aware, and I am sure that you will want to remind the House, that personal statements are not only listened to in silence but are not commented on.

Peter Bottomley: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have not been here as long as the hon. Lady, so this may be an unnecessary comment. However, my understanding is that there is no comment on personal statements once they are concluded but they are often referred to in subsequent parliamentary debates.

Andrew MacKinlay: Or during a guillotine motion.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. A generalised reference post facto is permissible, but I was about to suggest to the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) that, having made a generalised point, he should perhaps nudge his focus on to the allocation of time motion before the House.

Quentin Davies: Indeed, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, personal resignation statements are an important part of our political history, and a great many of them have been referred to many years and, indeed, generations after they were delivered.

Ian Paisley: The Secretary of State seemed to hint that the usual channels had agreed today's arrangements. Can the hon. Gentleman assure the House that the Conservative Whips did not agree to a cut in the time for debate? No Member from Northern Ireland, as far as I am aware, whatever party they represent, was consulted in any way about today's time limit.

Quentin Davies: It does not surprise me in the least that the Government did not consult any of the Northern Ireland parties about the timetable motion, as they do not appear to consult the democratically elected Northern Ireland parties about the substance of their proposals on Northern Ireland. We shall discuss an example of that very shortly. I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that he seeks—no deal has been done between the usual channels, and I have not discussed the timetable motion at all with the Government. They do not know what I am about to tell them—what the attitude of the Opposition is towards the timetable motion.

John Bercow: Given the importance of communicating to the people of this country the extent of the Government's contempt for Parliament entailed by the allocation of time motion, will my hon. Friend confirm that, if we start the Second Reading debate at 5 pm, continue for an hour and have a further hour on Third Reading at the end, it means, in practice, that fewer than 10 minutes will be available to debate each of the 19 tabled amendments?

Quentin Davies: My hon. Friend always does his homework impressively and I am sure that his calculations are right. As he says, it is a disgraceful and also an extremely sad state of affairs.
	Let me set the curiosity of the House at rest. Had there been some consultation and had we not had such an egregious example this afternoon of an attempt to manipulate Parliament and deliberately waste even more time—the Government acknowledged that it was scarce—I might have been open to the idea, because we accept the need to take a rapid decision on whether to hold elections in Northern Ireland, of accepting some form of timetable motion. However, in view of the circumstances, the Government's attitude and their squalid tricks this afternoon, there is no question of that. We must stand up for what we believe in—that Parliament deserves to be and must be treated with some respect, and that the Government's treatment of Parliament is nothing less than a constitutional disaster. I shall therefore urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against the motion. At this 11th hour, I do not have any great hopes, but I would like to see some last-minute repentance when the Government come to understand the impact of their actions, as viewed not just on this side of the House, but by distinguished Members on their own side.

Andrew MacKinlay: I shall enter the Division Lobby against the guillotine motion, which is an outrageous example of the House being brought into disrepute by the charade of our lawmaking process. It is the ultimate example. It was within the competence of the Government to have accorded some extra time for the Committee stage—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State, from a sedentary position, says nonsense, but he was not prepared to give way in his speech. I wanted to intervene on him and I believe I am correct in saying that when he was challenged, he said that he did not decide on Government business. Before coming into the Chamber I tried to inquire who was the guilty party and the Whips told me, "It is not us, Guv". The fact remains that someone somewhere in Government arrogantly decided that all stages of debate would be concluded at 10 pm. It is a shameful exercise, and I am not prepared any longer to acquiesce by my silence in this charade of lawmaking.
	If the Secretary of State can contain himself, I shall take him back to 10 minutes to midnight last Tuesday evening, when I asked him when he would publish the Bill. He told me, "Thursday", but as he sat down, the blood drained from his face because he realised that he had screwed up: he did not mean Thursday and it was, in fact, published on Friday. The reason it was published on Friday is that it is a complicated Bill and the parliamentary draftsmen did not have enough time to complete it sooner. It is all right for the Government to have as much time as they need to prepare for a complicated Bill, but it is of no consequence to Parliament. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State should be more sensitive to the legitimate requirements of the House to see a final Bill properly printed, to be able to consider amendments and to consult other people and parties about them.
	To buttress my case, I draw attention to clause 6—a catch-all clause lobbed into the Bill, which it makes it even more complicated. Basically, it provides that if anything in the Act needs altering, the Secretary of State has absolute power to alter it. That is a total power, which I believe requires the utmost scrutiny. It means that the Secretary of State can alter anything by statutory instrument without an affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament. That demonstrates how the rivets have been put on the Bill as it has been going down the slipway. No one else has time to consider it and I am not prepared to go along with this charade. It is a thundering disgrace.

Alistair Carmichael: I associate myself with the remarks of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in relation to the bombing this morning at the Ulster Unionist party's headquarters.
	Since taking an interest in Northern Ireland matters in this place, I have been struck forcefully by the extent to which elected representatives in the House, in other councils and in the legislative Assembly in Northern Ireland require a great deal of courage to go about their day-to-day business, doing things that many of us on this side of the water have always taken for granted.
	The Secretary of State, in introducing the timetable motion, referred to the need for urgency. Given that this is a mess of the Government's own making, no one on either side of the House could possible dispute that there is an element of urgency to today's proceedings. However, urgency is one thing, indecent haste is something quite different, and the terms of the timetabling motion, insisting on a conclusion by 10 o'clock, constitute indecent haste.
	Having said that, I am mindful of the fact that it is already past 5 o'clock and that we are eating into valuable time. I in no way disagree with the hon. Members for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) and for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), but I wonder whether, even at this late stage, everyone having put their objections on the record, it might be possible to recognise the inevitable and deal with this without a Division, which would be an unacceptable use of exceptionally precious time. It would be a good example of responsible opposition, which, I regret to say, would stand in stark contrast to the attitude displayed by the Government.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: Members representing English constituencies who get themselves involved in Northern Ireland affairs are not usually those who seek general popularity. Indeed, some might say that they are not even very sensible. But the reality is that we are a United Kingdom, and Parliament, inadequate though it may be, represents every member of it, of every political party and every shade of view.
	I have the greatest respect for the Secretary of State. He is an honourable man who fulfils a difficult task very well indeed. But I am today very concerned by the fact that it is felt necessary to timetable such important legislation in this manner. It has become a habit of the Government to treat the passing of legislation as merely a question of spending sufficient hours in a way that can be properly marshalled, and it is not good enough to come to the House of Commons and say, "It is true that the House of Lords must have two days, but despite this being a matter of such importance I intend you to have only one."
	I am very disturbed. I dislike the timetabling of Bills anyway, but on a matter that is of almost constitutional importance, I have to say that, in my political experience, Members, however discursive, ill informed or sadly misinformed they are, and from whatever part of the globe they come, have the right to express their views in the House of Commons in a proper way. To do that, they must have time, and we must have the time to disagree with them. Those who seek to curtail debate, whatever their reasons and whatever the so-called urgency, do democracy, and certainly the House of Commons, ill, and I am sad to see it today.

David Trimble: I thank the Secretary of State and other hon. Members for their comments on the incident at my party's headquarters this morning. As hon. Members may know, an envelope containing a device and addressed to me was being opened by one of my researchers when the device was activated. Had it operated in the way in which the people who made it planned, that gentleman could have received fatal injuries. What happened was a very serious incident in itself. I say to the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), who speaks for the Opposition, that I, too, hope that, like those who sent a letter bomb to my constituency office some time ago, the people responsible for today's incident will be apprehended. I am sure that the police will spare no effort in that regard.
	We have always been opposed, and we continue to be opposed, to guillotines. They are wrong in principle and in this case. However, we are realistic and we know that the Government have a majority. We welcome very much the comments and support of the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), but even reinforced by that formidable support we would be unlikely to defeat the Government were the motion pressed to a vote, so I shall not speak at great length. Two points will suffice.
	First, the Bill is unnecessary and should not have been introduced. It would not have been if the Government had thought the matter through clearly. There is a conflict between the Northern Ireland Acts of 1998 and 2000. Conflict has been clear, and inconsistency has been clear for some time. Any simple thought by the Government from October onwards would have made them realise that there was a problem that could and should have been resolved. There was plenty of opportunity to resolve the problem, but rather than doing so, people waited to the last minute, hoping that somehow it would go away. It has not. That is unnecessary; with a little bit of thought, the Government could have dealt with it.
	As the Government failed to think the matter through and to act, it is unfair that hon. Members should be penalised by lack of time. The Government could either have given more time after 10 o'clock or followed the good example of the other place and allocated another day. There is plenty of time for that, given the business that the Government have scheduled for the rest of the week.
	Secondly, until a few minutes ago, I was under the impression that the Opposition line was to make their point on the guillotine, but not to divide the House. That will only penalise us, as we will lose another 15 to 20 minutes. I ask the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford to think.

Eddie McGrady: I have great sympathy with the position in which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has been put and the necessity, because of circumstance, of tabling this guillotine motion. I also felt sorry for him last Tuesday night, when we again addressed at 10 pm a very difficult problem in Northern Ireland. However, that is nothing new. This Administration, like earlier Administrations, have given us a dosage of late-night debates on some of the most crucial matters of life and death.
	I must not waste time on this guillotine debate, because we as a party must oppose the guillotine. The reason is simple. We are talking about a fundamental change in the democratic process. It is not necessarily a suspension of the elections sine die. It might be an abolition of the elections, because the only redeeming aspect or possibility of bringing an election back to the political forum of Northern Ireland is, in the terms of my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State, if trust can be re-established. Who measures the degree of trust that would trigger an election? That is a very subjective theme on which to base whether we have an election. Is it the Secretary of State's judgment to say that trust has been re-established or is it the Prime Minister's judgment? That is what the Bill is all about.
	The reality is that, by the suspension and possible abolition of elections, we are handing to the parties in Northern Ireland—particularly Sinn Fein and, I must say, the Ulster Unionist party—a veto as to when, if ever, elections will be held. If they say that they do not have trust, there will, according to the Bill, be no elections. That is a very dangerous precedent. Although I have great sympathy for the Secretary of State, we must record our opposition to the guillotine. Such fundamental principles are involved that we cannot let them go without debate.
	I extend my sympathy to the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) and his party, and to the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Dodds), who was attacked physically. That is an attack on us all, as we have said so often in this House.

David Burnside: Does not the hon. Gentleman underestimate the present electoral strength, power and veto of the SDLP? The Assembly and the Executive would still be in existence and the election would already have taken place had the SDLP separated itself after Sinn Fein proved itself to be incapable of being a democratic party and was involved in Stormontgate—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not go down that route: it is outside the scope of the motion.

Eddie McGrady: You have disappointed me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by not allowing me to respond to that attack on my party, but I will abide by your ruling. We know which party withdrew from the last Administration: it was the party of the hon. Member for South Antrim (David Burnside), and no other, that withdrew, bringing about the collapse of the Government. Had its members stayed on in their posts, we would not be here tonight.

Seamus Mallon: When my hon. Friend speaks about the hon. Gentleman's party, what exactly is he talking about?

Eddie McGrady: I wish that I had had notice of that intervention, because I am somewhat nonplussed as to how to respond.
	We must record our opposition to the shortness of this debate on a very fundamental aspect of democracy in Northern Ireland. We now have the ludicrous situation whereby many party members who paid their deposits for nomination for election last Friday week and last Monday are still waiting for it to be repaid as the Bill goes through. That is how much politics and the democratic process have been, and are being, brought into disrepute in Northern Ireland.

Ian Paisley: Of course, all hon. Members sympathise with the official Unionist party and condemn the attack on its headquarters. I wish that the leader of that party had been as liberal with my party after it was attacked in North Belfast with a 100 lb bomb in a building where two senior citizens were being attended to by their Member of Parliament. At the time, no one in this House, not even the Secretary of State, thought to mention that. I am glad that he did so today. I condemn all such actions equally. Whatever the place may be, no one should plant a bomb or anything that would cause grief, wounding or even killing. That must be utterly and totally condemned. I hope that the people who bombed the official Unionist party's headquarters and the people who bombed the advice centre of my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Dodds) will be caught and brought to justice, and that the law will take its course, showing that the law does rule in Northern Ireland.
	It is all very well for the Secretary of State to say that I am wasting time, but he tabled the motion and allowed us three hours to discuss it. He cannot say to me, as a representative from Northern Ireland, that I am wasting the time of the House. I had nothing to do with the three hours that he appointed; neither I nor my party were consulted. As he knows very well, because I spoke to him personally in the House last week, we are grateful that he made an effort to get Members from Northern Ireland a copy of the draft Bill. Otherwise, we would have received a copy only when we walked into the House today. The House should not conduct its business in such a way.
	The Bill does not postpone but cancels the election. In the case of postponement, a date would be set. Even someone in Dublin, who must have been at the meetings there, gave a date in October. However, that disappeared when the matter came up for discussion. We have no date and the statement made it clear who would make the decision. The hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) referred to that. The Bill would wipe out a date for elections, so we are considering cancellation. That is very serious.
	The Secretary of State is a fair man and I know that he wants to help the people of Northern Ireland. He may be helping them in the wrong way, but we shall not judge him for that. Some day he will answer to a higher authority. However, surely we should have time to debate the matter properly. I ask him to give us time to do that.

Tom Harris: The date of the next general election to this House has not been announced. It may be in 2005 or 2006, but we will not know until a month beforehand. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that elections to this House have been cancelled?

Ian Paisley: It is a pity that the hon. Gentleman has not read the Bill. The measure that set up the Assembly provided for a fixed-term Assembly. I sit in the European Parliament, and I know on the day I am elected when the next election will take place. That should apply in the case that we are considering. My party took the Government to court to deal with the matter, and we have therefore done our bit. After the Bill is passed, the election will be cancelled—that is the truth.

Peter Robinson: Is not the comparison that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Harris) made ludicrous? Clearly, elections to the House have to take place in a stipulated period of time. The Bill makes no such stipulation. The Secretary of State could decide to hold them in five years.

Ian Paisley: My hon. Friend is right. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Harris) made his point. The subject pulls together voices from all over the community. I do not often agree with the SDLP, but its members agree with me and I agree with them about the Bill. We should not pass it and the elections should take place when they were set to happen.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I am beginning to be sorry that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Harris) raised the matter, because it is taking us away from the motion. We must not discuss the Bill at this stage.

Ian Paisley: I believed that we were discussing the timetable motion, not the Bill.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: We are considering the timetable motion.

Ian Paisley: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not want to get on the wrong side of the Chair today, because I mean to stay until the bitter end to vote on the Bill.
	The House does itself no good with anybody in Northern Ireland when it acts in the way in which it is acting to put off the elections.

Peter Bottomley: The answer to the dilemma is for the Government to ask permission to modify the timetable motion in the light of the debate and the time that was properly taken up by the two statements. At least that time should be added to our discussions. In the remaining minutes of the timetable debate, I make a plea to the Government to hold consultations, speak to the Chair and ascertain whether it is possible to make such a modification. Otherwise, debates in this place make no difference.
	I do not believe that the arguments put forward for maintaining the timetable stand up at all. I do not want to be partisan, but this is the simplest answer. If this debate went on until about midnight, it might inconvenience some of the people who have got used to the idea of clearing up at 10, but I think that they would understand the importance of the matter.
	I do not agree with the leader of the Ulster Unionists, or with the Liberal spokesman. I think that this is a matter on which a vote is necessary. We cannot start accepting this kind of trampling on the opportunities of Parliament. Most Members of Parliament have seen the Bill only today and have had no opportunity to table any amendments. Without going into the merits of the Bill, or of specific parts of it, I would like to draw hon. Members' attention to clause 6(5), which says that the Secretary of State can do whatever he likes within 40 days by putting an order through—and, by the way, clause 6(6) says that he does not even need to do that if he thinks it expedient not to. If I had had the time, I would certainly have tried to table an amendment that would have taken out subsection (6). We cannot deal with subsection (6) without considering clause 6. The timetable motion should at least allow for debate on matters on which there has been a chance to table amendments.
	I would say to the Government that, of course, life is difficult, and the decisions that they have taken have not been easy. I would also say to those who are not here—namely, the Sinn Fein Members of Parliament—that I am very sorry that the IRA has not allowed them to take part fully as Members of this House, because they would then learn that Parliament is normally, although not today, a place where we can air our views and be defeated. In this case, however, we are not even to be allowed a debate before we are defeated on some of the things that we would like to change in the Bill.
	I repeat my plea to the people on the Government Front Bench to think again, and to change the terms of this motion in the light of the debate. I suspect that the Chair would be amenable to the tabling of an amendment to this timetable motion. Although two days' debate would be better, to go on until midnight rather than 10 in the light of the time taken up by the two statements today would be appropriate.

Richard Shepherd: Things have come to an extraordinary pass when I am the only one who is going to compliment the Secretary of State on moving this motion. The House has reduced itself to such an extent that the Government do not, as a rule, even trouble the House with a Secretary of State in command of a Department giving the reasons why they should truncate debate. Having heard his inadequate explanation, however, I well understand why many Secretaries of State do not advance such arguments. He has given no real explanation as to why there is such a supernatural necessity to deal with this matter within the terms of this extraordinary guillotine motion, which truncates debate in as reckless a manner as any that we have seen under this Government.
	The Secretary of State suggested that he was bringing to an end expense for parties and for individuals, but he is already making provision in the Bill to ensure that such expenses are met. So that is not a reason for the urgency. We know that the Government, who operate the majoritarian principle with such ruthlessness, will be assured of securing their business. Some sophists have tried to distinguish between a timetable and what we in the House have always known colloquially as a guillotine. There is no attempt at serious timetabling here. The Government have not sought consultation, or asked the participating parties for their views on this matter. There has been no endeavour whatever to suggest that this is a timetable motion. It is simply, in the oldest expression of the House, a guillotine.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker, you very kindly submitted to the Modernisation Committee a memorandum on the operation of timetabling and the use of the guillotine, which was published in the report on the proceedings of that Committee. One of your objections—I will give you the reference if you wish, Sir—reflected something that many of us on both sides of the House fear, namely the exclusion of Back Benchers from the debate. Every amendment on the Order Paper, with the exception of amendment No. 2, tabled in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith), has been tabled in the names of Back Benchers. It is the simplest thing for a Government with a great majority to determine that the matter in hand shall be dismissed without regard to the calibrations which individual elected Members of the United Kingdom Parliament may wish to raise in respect of part of their country and which deeply affect those they represent. That is the most profound statement of why we are here, and we have made it time and again.
	I do not think for one moment that the Secretary of State will relent on timetables or whatever, as the Government march to another drum. In fact, his audacity is such as to commend the fact that, due to necessity, unelected people elsewhere, who are now mostly appointed, will have two days to discuss the measure. That puts the matter in perspective.

John Bercow: Further to the speech of our hon. Friend the Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley), does my hon. Friend agree that even if the Government were not prepared to recommend to the House a reconsidered motion allowing for debate until midnight, there is no good reason whatever why full consideration of the measure should not take precedence over this Thursday's proposed debate on a motion for the Adjournment of the House on developing a national skills strategy—an important matter, but palpably not urgent?

Richard Shepherd: I have experience of guillotine motions and debates that take place under them, and I honestly have no idea how long it would take to debate the measure sensibly and within terms, as I understand them from the amendments. I do not know whether we would finish by 10 o'clock, but I am interested to note that, often, when I have opposed a guillotine motion on the basis that a matter should be allowed its time, the debate has dried up within the time allotted.
	We are talking not about the measurement of time, but about the principle as to whether serious Members of Parliament should be allowed the flow and the proper time in respect of passing legislation. That is the profound matter of principle involved when we discuss such a guillotine motion. Having read the amendments—some of which I support—my guess is that the matter would perhaps have been disposed of in the time ordinarily available for the business of the House. Of course, two statements have altered the tempo and timing of the day.
	My last point involves not a discussion of your memorandum, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but a reflection on the fact that we have come to a serious pass when leaders of great parties—for instance, the Ulster Unionist party—say, "We accept that we are working under such a burden as this guillotine motion. Accepting that, and knowing that the matter will be dealt with in the House of Lords or wherever else, we would rather get on and will not vote against." Surely that relates to as profound a principle that secures and supports the rights of the Ulster Unionists as any I know in the House.
	In the Division, I hope that the Ulster Unionists will join Conservative Front Benchers and all those good Members of the House who stand up for the principle of freedom of speech on parliamentary business.

Kevin McNamara: I had not intended to speak, but the comments of the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) cannot be allowed to pass. I well remember a Conservative Government taking through the House in a day a manuscript Bill that sought to justify all the actions of the British Army in Northern Ireland from the outbreak of the troubles until 1971. The Chair accepted no amendments, bar one, which would have allowed us to look at it again after six months. Only 15 Members voted for it, and not one Tory Member was there to fight for Parliament's right to consider every single matter.
	Having said that, I shall vote against the motion, because I think that it is wrong. It little behoves the Tory party in particular to be arguing this case, and it little behoves the Ulster Unionists to be arguing that we should not vote against the motion. We know that all these proceedings favour the position of the Ulster Unionists, and that that is why we are here in the first place.

The House divided: Ayes 274, Noes 175.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That the following provisions shall apply to the proceedings on the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections and Periods of Suspension) Bill—
	Timetable
	1. Proceedings on Second Reading, in Committee, on consideration and on Third Reading shall be completed at this day's sitting and shall be brought to a conclusion, if not previously concluded, at Ten o'clock.
	Timing of proceedings and Questions to be put
	2. When the Bill has been read a second time—
	(a) it shall, notwithstanding Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of bills), stand committed to a Committee of the whole House without any Question being put;
	(b) proceedings on the Bill shall stand postponed while the Question is put, in accordance with paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 52 (Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with bills), on any financial resolution relating to the Bill;
	(c) on the conclusion of proceedings on any financial resolution relating to the Bill, proceedings on the Bill shall be resumed and the Speaker shall leave the Chair whether or not notice of an Instruction has been given.
	3. On the conclusion of proceedings in Committee the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without putting any Question and, if the Bill is reported with amendments, the House shall proceed to consider the Bill as amended without any Question being put.
	4. For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 1 the Speaker or Chairman shall forthwith put the following Questions (but no others)—
	(a) any Question already proposed from the Chair;
	(b) any Question necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed;
	(c) the Question on any amendment moved or Motion made by a Minister of the Crown;
	(d) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded.
	5. On a Motion so made for a new Clause or a new Schedule, the Chairman or Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.
	Consideration of Lords Amendments
	6.—(1) Any Lords Amendments to the Bill shall be considered forthwith without any Question being put.
	(2) Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall be brought to a conclusion, if not previously concluded, one hour after their commencement.
	7.—(1) This paragraph applies for the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 6.
	(2) The Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question already proposed from the Chair and not yet decided.
	(3) If that Question is for the amendment of a Lords Amendment the Speaker shall then put forthwith—
	(a) a single Question on any further Amendments to the Lords Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown, and
	(b) the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House agrees or disagrees to the Lords Amendment or (as the case may be) to the Lords Amendment as amended.
	(4) The Speaker shall then put forthwith—
	(a) a single Question on any Amendments moved by a Minister of the Crown to a Lords Amendment, and
	(b) the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House agrees or disagrees to the Lords Amendment or (as the case may be) to the Lords Amendment as amended.
	(5) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House disagrees to a Lords Amendment.
	(6) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question, That this House agrees to all the remaining Lords Amendments.
	(7) As soon as the House has agreed or disagreed to a Lords Amendment, or disposed of an Amendment relevant to a Lords Amendment which has been disagreed to, the Speaker shall put forthwith a single Question on any Amendments moved by a Minister of the Crown and relevant to the Lords Amendment.
	Subsequent stages
	8.—(1) Any further Message from the Lords on the Bill shall be considered forthwith without any Question being put.
	(2) Proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.
	9.—(1) This paragraph applies for the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 8.
	(2) The Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has already been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided.
	(3) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown which is related to the Question already proposed from the Chair.
	(4) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown on or relevant to any of the remaining items in the Lords Message.
	(5) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question, That this House agrees with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Proposals.
	Reasons Committee
	10.—(1) The Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the appointment, nomination and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons in relation to the Bill and the appointment of its Chairman.
	(2) A Committee appointed to draw up Reasons shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which it is appointed.
	(3) Proceedings in the Committee shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion 30 minutes after their commencement.
	(4) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with sub-paragraph (3) the Chairman shall—
	(a) first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the Chair but not yet decided, and
	(b) then put forthwith successively Questions on motions which may be made by a Minister of the Crown for assigning a Reason for disagreeing with the Lords in any of their Amendments.
	(5) The proceedings of the Committee shall be reported without any further Question being put.
	Miscellaneous
	11. Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 15 (Exempted business) shall apply to any proceedings to which this Order applies.
	12. The proceedings on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement and paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 15 shall apply to those proceedings.
	13. Standing Order No. 82 (Business Committee) shall not apply in relation to any proceedings to which this Order applies.
	14. No Motion shall be made to alter the order in which any proceedings on the Bill are taken or to re-commit the Bill.
	15. No dilatory Motion shall be made in relation to proceedings to which this Order applies except by a Minister of the Crown; and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
	16.—(1) This paragraph applies if—
	(a) a Motion for the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 24 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) has been stood over to Seven o'clock, Three o'clock or Four o'clock (as the case may be), but
	(b) proceedings to which this Order applies have begun before then.
	(2) Proceedings on that Motion shall stand postponed until the conclusion of those proceedings.
	17. If the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before the conclusion of any proceedings to which this Order applies, no notice shall be required of a Motion made at the next sitting by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.
	18. Proceedings to which this Order applies shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.

Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections and Periods of Suspension) Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Paul Murphy: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	This Bill provides for deferment of the elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly that were due to be held on 29 May. I very much regret having to introduce the Bill. I should have much preferred to present an order for the restoration of devolved Government. Elections should be deferred only for the most compelling reasons. However, I am clear that, in presenting the Bill, the Government are doing what is most likely to sustain the Good Friday agreement and a political process that will bring nearer the day when we shall be able to restore the devolved institutions.
	I have already set out in my statements of 1 May and 6 May the advances that we, the Irish Government and the political parties in Northern Ireland made over the six months following the suspension of devolved government in October last year. We had arrived at a comprehensive set of proposals for the full implementation of the Belfast agreement. A fundamental element of those proposals was that there must be an end to all paramilitary activity. Those Members who have read or will read paragraph 13 of the joint declaration of the two Governments will have seen or will see that that is spelled out in detail.
	The paragraph says:
	"We need to see an immediate, full and permanent cessation of all paramilitary activity, including military attacks, training, targeting, intelligence gathering, acquisition or development of arms or weapons, other preparations for terrorist campaigns, punishment beatings and attacks and involvement in riots. Moreover, the practice of exiling must come to an end and the exiled must feel free to return in safety. Similarly, sectarian attacks and intimidation directed at vulnerable communities must cease."
	Nothing is clearer than paragraph 13 and that statement, which defines in detail what is meant by paramilitary activity.
	The IRA statements that were published last week and the clarifications offered by the president of Sinn Fein were significant developments but, taken together, they do not give the clarity that is needed in response to the single question: will there be an immediate end to all paramilitary activity? That lack of clarity is very damaging. A very broad range of opinion in the UK, in the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere has found the statements of the republican movement lacking the assurance that it is legitimate to demand in a democratic and civilised society.
	Our central goal is to make the Good Friday agreement work. At the heart of that agreement, which the vast majority of the House supported at the time and which a vast majority continue to support, was a commitment to pursuing political goals by exclusively peaceful and democratic means. It is self-evident that, after five years of what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister called "creative ambiguity", we now need clarity if the institutions are to work.
	We did not have that clarity. Consequently, we believe that the institutions would not work. The election would not have given us government as envisaged in the agreement, and so it was to defend the agreement that, with a very heavy heart, we decided that a deferment was necessary. I would not pretend for one second to the House that it was an easy decision; it was not. However, I believe that it was the right decision.

David Burnside: The Secretary of State has been very clear in defining the non-violent democratic activities to which we expect the republican movement to adhere. Does he therefore agree that it would be wrong and undemocratic for the Provisional IRA to carry out any action against an informer who has been in its military organisation in the past 30 years and who, at present, may feel under great threat from its execution squads?

Paul Murphy: The hon. Gentleman must have someone in mind. I assure him that none of the attacks made on whatever persons in Northern Ireland can be justified. No attack on anybody in whatever circumstances is justifiable. It would be condemned by all of us in the House.
	Let me recall how the agreement came about. It was the product of several decades of political activity, and many Members of the House spent many months—indeed, years—in arranging political activities so that we could come to an agreement as we did in 1998. However, effectively there was intensive negotiation in 1997 and 1998. The agreement held the promise of a final transition from deep-rooted community conflict and the plague of terrorism to a normal and peaceful society.
	The key characteristic of the system of government that the agreement established was the institutionalisation of cross-community partnership. Many different features of the agreement are valued by different people in Northern Ireland, but I believe that that feature inspired the electorate of Northern Ireland to vote by 77.1 per cent. in favour of the agreement. The prospect of an agreed future in place of division and conflict enthused many people on both sides of the community. That promise still leads a majority of people on both sides of the community to say that they still want the agreement to work, which was shown by a poll in the Belfast Telegraph in February, to which 60 per cent. of the respondents were Protestants.
	The mechanics of such institutionalised partnership government are different from the system in the House or the institutions in any other democracy that I know. Nearly all elections to such institutions yield a government, even if time is required to build a coalition. Cross-community government, as we all know, is different. It depends on widespread willingness to participate, and that is dependent on trust. That trust was lost last October when we had to suspend the institutions.
	As the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) said last week, an election now would not be an election to the institutions prescribed by the agreement because those institutions would not work. It would be an election to a set of non-functional institutions. Had we held such an election and then lifted suspension, we could well have faced administrative chaos and further early elections. Far from democracy being enhanced, it would have been undermined. That would not protect the agreement. All hon. Members who support the agreement must ask themselves whether holding an election now would represent a step toward its long-term success.

Kevin McNamara: Does my right hon. Friend recall that 15 months passed after the elections to the Assembly before an agreed Administration was formed?

Paul Murphy: I do remember that, because I was involved in trying to bring the institutions back together during at least half of those months. The difference lies in what I said earlier. The reasons why we were in difficulty during those early months are not as stark as the reasons why we are in difficulty today. The Prime Minister's speech in Belfast in October 2002 was echoed and agreed by the Taoiseach. He said that we had reached a "fork in the road" and that after five years, there must be an end to paramilitary activity, although there might have been creative ambiguity for some years before. The world has changed in five years and people have lost patience with continued paramilitary activity, which is why trust was lost in October 2002.
	My hon. Friend was right to imply that we can experience a long and involved process. He will recall that just after 5.30 pm on the Good Friday in 1998 when Senator George Mitchell said that the agreement had been approved, one of the first things that he said was that we were at the beginning of the difficulties, rather than the end of them. He said that a bumpy road would be ahead of us. Of course we knew that, but everything depends on how big the bumps are. Some institutions can survive specific difficulties. However, he knows that the Assembly will operate properly only within the terms of the Belfast agreement that allow for proper power sharing throughout the community, which were approved in the referendum.

Jeremy Corbyn: I am interested in what the Secretary of State says about the postponement of the elections, but will he explain how postponing elections will assist the development of democratic institutions in Northern Ireland, since those who did not want the Assembly in the first place do not want the elections to be held and, indeed, have a vested interest in ensuring the breakdown of the Good Friday agreement?

Paul Murphy: There are certainly people—I shall refer to them in a second—who do not, and never did, agree with the Belfast agreement. They have sincere reasons for that position, and they were explained to the electorate when the referendum was called. However, the majority of people in Northern Ireland voted in favour of the Belfast agreement in the referendum, as did the majority of people in the Republic of Ireland.

Peter Robinson: Times change.

Paul Murphy: Time does change things, as I hear the hon. Gentleman say, and that is precisely the point that I am making: times have changed over the past five years and we can no longer tolerate continued paramilitary activity. Such activity must stop so that trust and confidence may be built up among politicians in Northern Ireland.

Andrew Hunter: If it is the demands of the Belfast agreement that prevent the restoration of a devolved and democratic Government in Northern Ireland, is it possible that it is the demands of the agreement that are at fault?

Paul Murphy: That is possible, but I do not think that it is the case. The hon. Gentleman knows that the nature of the Assembly that was suspended and eventually dissolved is different from that of any other Assembly in the United Kingdom. The Assembly is based on complicated and sophisticated rules of cross-community voting to ensure that nationalists and Unionists feel comfortable and able to accept it. It is a very special institution and, as I have said, it is not the same as the Assembly in Cardiff or the Parliament in Edinburgh.
	The Assembly is an integral part of the Good Friday agreement and those who were involved in drawing up the agreement will remember that during the strand 1 talks, which I had the honour of chairing, we spent month after month working out the intricate rules and regulations on cross-community activity and the sharing of power and responsibilities that were necessary to keep the Assembly going. If the Assembly had not had those special rules and had become an ordinary Assembly like any other in the United Kingdom, the Belfast agreement would not have worked. I do not believe for a second that the Assembly would be accepted across the board in Northern Ireland unless everyone in Northern Ireland who wanted the agreement accepted that it is very special and different.

Nigel Dodds: rose—

Paul Murphy: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will put me right on that and tell me that other views are held in Northern Ireland about the nature of the Assembly. Those views are sincerely held and may be debated, but they are not compatible with the Good Friday agreement.

Nigel Dodds: The Secretary of State talks about the nature of the agreement and the institutions set up under it and thus the need for Unionist as well as nationalist support. How does he respond to the assertion that the majority of Unionists do not support the implementation of the Belfast agreement? He should refer not to the referendum results but to the more recent results of the general election to this House. A clear two thirds of the Unionists elected were opposed to the agreement. How can the right hon. Gentleman sustain the notion that the Belfast agreement is the only way forward given that, although it clearly has the support of nationalists and republicans, it does not have the support of a clear majority of the Unionist people of Northern Ireland?

Paul Murphy: How can that be reconciled with the point that I made earlier? An opinion poll held more recently than those elections showed that people want the Belfast agreement to work. People want a peace process and a political process to work. The way in which the Belfast agreement works could be changed, and the hon. Gentleman knows that paragraph 8 of the agreement provides for the parties represented in the Assembly—including his—to sit around a table and determine how best to improve on practices used for the last four or five years. I do not suggest for a second that the agreement is static, but it is the only basis on which we may move the process forward. I cannot conceive of an Assembly in Belfast that did not allow the power sharing that the present agreement allows being workable. That is why the Government's decision last week was still, nevertheless, a difficult one. Last week, it was argued that, with an election campaign out of the way, dialogue and compromise would be easier for those involved. That is not manifestly an unreasonable point of view, but on the basis of what we have heard in recent exchanges—including in the House in the last fortnight—I cannot believe that that is the reality. An election held now, in the conditions created by the uncertainty surrounding the commitments, would simply have polarised opinion further and made it much more difficult to get the institutions up and running again.
	The other point is that the Good Friday agreement also refers to the other institutions of Government—the machinery north-south, east-west—and other issues that are interconnected. When people voted for the agreement, they voted for a host of different things, some of which were unpalatable to some and more palatable to others. What it has done, however, is to produce peace for five years, and no one—but no one—could underestimate the significance of that.

David Winnick: Has there not always been a lot of antagonism towards power sharing? Is that not why the original concept of power sharing rightly produced by the Conservative Government in the early 1970s—the Sunningdale agreement—was destroyed on the ground? We have undoubtedly improved on that agreement, but power sharing has always been opposed by a powerful section of the Unionist forces.

Paul Murphy: That may well have been the case, but I am sure that the parties, even the party represented by the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley), would agree that in the years of devolution since the Good Friday agreement was signed, the institutions that it established—in particular, the Assembly—were institutions in which all Unionist parties in Northern Ireland were willing to discuss with nationalists and, indeed, republicans, decisions that affected all the people of Northern Ireland.
	I am not saying for one second that everyone agreed with the Good Friday agreement, because people evidently did not. However, devolution worked and Ministers in the Executive came from the Democratic Unionist party, the Ulster Unionist party, Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic and Labour party. All those parties, representing the broad spectrum of Unionism and nationalism in Northern Ireland, worked to bring benefits to all the people of Northern Ireland. I am convinced that that was the case. I am not saying that it was always the happiest of families, but it never is. It is clear from events in the House today that we are not always a happy family here and sometimes disagree, but there is no question in my mind but that the people in Northern Ireland valued devolution because local Ministers made decisions for local people and were locally accountable.
	Some people, of course, do not want the agreement to succeed. I do not agree with them, but nor do I believe that their outlook is widely shared in the House. I am proud to defend the agreement and the benefits it has brought to Northern Ireland. It is not possible to argue that Northern Ireland was a better place before the agreement. Let us consider the economic benefits. We have 100,000 new jobs since the agreement's conclusion and the lowest levels of unemployment since 1975; and manufacturing output is up 15 per cent., compared with a fall elsewhere in the UK. Most of all, people are not being killed as they were when the conflict was raging.
	Of course, the situation is far from perfect. There is still criminality, including much violent criminality. In particular, the threat of paramilitarism looms. To cite one instance, all of us would deplore the attacks on the offices of democratically elected politicians from whatever party. Nevertheless, grave though some of the problems that still trouble us are, there is no doubt that the picture has greatly improved since, and directly because of, the Good Friday agreement.

John Taylor: The Secretary of State commented on Northern Ireland's economy. As one who spent several days as a private citizen in Northern Ireland over Easter, I was reminded of what a beautiful country it is. Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that enough is being done to promote tourism there?

Paul Murphy: We must do as much as we can to develop tourism. There is no doubt in my mind that it has improved over the past few years compared with 10 years ago. The work that the Assembly did through its Ministers encouraged tourism in Northern Ireland. I entirely agree that it is well worth visiting. There are great examples of geographical, topographical and geological places that we need to sell as well as we possibly can. The Giant's Causeway is one of the greatest sights that can be seen. All those places are there to be promoted, but that is best done in the context of peace. Tourism was not developed for 30 years because people were frightened to go to Northern Ireland to see what it had to offer. There is enormous potential for tourism right across the board, in the countryside, in the cities and the towns and on the coast—

Iris Robinson: rose—

Paul Murphy: Not least in the hon. Lady's constituency.

Iris Robinson: How many jobs have been lost to Northern Ireland since the Belfast agreement came into play?

Paul Murphy: There is a net gain. That is the point that I am making. [Interruption.] Obviously, I do not have the figures and the detail with me, but the hon. Lady knows as well as I do that Northern Ireland has the fastest growing economy of all the regions and nations in the UK. [Interruption.] Perhaps she has the figures.
	As Secretary of State for Wales, I had the benefit of seeing what happened in Wales. As a member of the Government, I have had the opportunity to see what has happened in the English regions and Scotland. Despite the setbacks, the fastest growing economy in the UK is in Northern Ireland. I do not underestimate the problems of redundancies in parts of Northern Ireland, but I am sure that the hon. Lady would be the first to say that over the past five years Northern Ireland has been a better place in which to live than it was 10 years ago.

Stephen McCabe: I am perplexed by the comments by the hon. Member for Strangford (Mrs. Robinson). I know that her party takes a cynical view of the agreement, but is there any evidence to suggest that jobs—other than those directly associated with terrorism—have been lost as a direct result of the benefits of the agreement?

Paul Murphy: I reiterate that there is a net gain in jobs in Northern Ireland.

Seamus Mallon: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that Tourism Ireland, one of the cross-border bodies established by the Good Friday agreement, is responsible for marketing the whole of Ireland to tourists? Will he also confirm that Tourism Ireland is without the political direction that it was designed to receive? Indeed, the 600 people who work in various cross-border bodies are also without the indigenous political direction that they were designed to receive. When we talk about tourism and job creation, will the Secretary of State explain that there is a dynamic within the cross-border arrangements for job creation on a massive scale?

Paul Murphy: There is no doubt in my mind that tourists want to come to the island of Ireland. Traditionally, many more have visited the Republic. I am glad that thousands more are now coming to Northern Ireland as a consequence of visiting the island of Ireland.

Hugo Swire: The Secretary of State paints a rosy picture of the Northern Ireland economy. The other economy that is prospering in Northern Ireland is the black economy. While the extortion and smuggling propagated by the paramilitary organisations continue apace, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there can never be full completion until fundraising is added to the list that he outlines time and time again in talking about completion by Sinn Fein-IRA or, indeed, any other paramilitary organisation?

Paul Murphy: There is nothing wrong with fundraising—it is the nature of the fundraising that matters. None the less, I agree with the general thrust of the hon. Gentleman's remarks.
	We shall pursue the continuing implementation of the Belfast agreement. The joint declaration sets out a programme of reform in line with the agreement that benefits everyone in Northern Ireland. We shall proceed with a number of the proposals in the joint declaration in the interests of everyone in Northern Ireland. There are very important proposals relating to security normalisation. Some of them can be achieved only in the event of steps taken by others: they rely on the creation of a new security context. Obviously, they must wait.

Helen Jackson: On the joint declaration, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is crucial that both Governments believe, with huge regret, that it represents the right way forward? Is not the publication of the joint declaration an important reason why we should reluctantly accept this difficult decision?

Paul Murphy: The joint declaration is the result of almost seven months of discussion and negotiation. It represents a shared understanding between the Governments and the pro-agreement parties that this was the best way forward. Even though we did not agree on elections, relations between the British and Irish Governments remain robust and firm. Without that good relationship, we could not make the progress that is necessary.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: I ask again: what indications has the Secretary of State been given by the Ulster Unionist party that the joint declaration is a shared understanding of the way forward?

Paul Murphy: That was not a bad try. The hon. Gentleman tried it last Tuesday, and given that he has asked the same question, I will give him the same answer. The declaration is a shared understanding among those who negotiated and discussed these matters at Hillsborough and elsewhere. It is up to the individual political parties in Northern Ireland through their own mechanisms to decide how best to deal with these matters. Let me again emphasise the fact that the joint declaration is one document, but there are two others. The hon. Gentleman's party did not like the one that deals with on-the-runs, so it was not a shared understanding between that party and the Governments. Sinn Fein did not like the other document, which referred to the monitoring body and the verification procedures and sanctions; again, the two Governments decided to put it forward.
	Some, including the hon. Gentleman, have suggested that the declaration is a charter of concessions to one side. I do not believe that—nor do I think that such an assertion is supported by the facts. Proper policing, justice, rights and equality are fundamental to everybody, whatever side they belong to, in a modern democratic society. The joint declaration includes an end to all paramilitary activity and sets out an extensive catalogue, which I have already quoted, of activities that must cease. It includes plans for an independent body for monitoring conformity with commitments in the agreement and the declaration, in particular the monitoring of paramilitary activity. We shall bring forward early legislation in that respect—legislation for which we shall have more time—that also covers the means for giving effect to the body's findings.
	The further implementation of the agreement is not about concessions to one interest or the other. It is designed to reassure all parties that in due course they can go into elections confident that the institutions are being restored on a stable, long term, basis. What we need now is the continuation of political dialogue. It is essential that we continue to work vigorously and without any loss of momentum to resolve our difficulties. It is also important that we do not lose focus. A great many issues have stood in the way of political progress in the past, but we are now essentially down to two: trust about the use of exclusively peaceful means and about the stability of the institutions. We will work with all the parties and the Irish Government, with our intention being to hold an election in the autumn.

Peter Robinson: The burden of the Secretary of State's argument is that the IRA might not step up to the mark in terms of a full commitment to non-violence. If the sanctions that he mentioned worked, why would he stop an election when he could have dealt with the IRA through the sanctions process? Is that not an admission on his part that the sanctions were hopeless?

Paul Murphy: But the sanctions that are to be proposed as a consequence of the joint declaration are new ones, which would have to be—indeed, will be—legislated for in this House of Commons. That will take time. My argument is that it is a pointless exercise electing people to a suspended Assembly which, if it is restored, will not produce a Government in the context of the Belfast agreement. That is the heart of the matter. Why is the Assembly suspended? Because of a lack of confidence and trust. Why are confidence and trust lacking? Because of continued paramilitary activity. We must address the paramilitary activity in order to restore the trust needed to restore the institutions and hold elections to them.

David Burnside: If we had an Executive in operation and the new sanctions process—the four-person sanctions committee—was operating in law, and if the activities of the Provisional IRA in Colombia were repeated, and Castlereagh happened again, and Stormontgate happened again, would that lead to the automatic expulsion of Sinn Fein from the Executive?

Paul Murphy: No doubt the hon. Gentleman has read the joint declaration and the annexe to it and has seen the proposal for a gradation of offences, so that the most serious—I do not underestimate the seriousness of the matters he mentions—would be referred in the first instance to the Assembly itself. Decisions would then have to be taken, because the finger would have been pointed by the verification body at the offence in question. No such monitoring body exists at present. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that the existence of that body will be an extra protection for those who want to ensure that the institutions are safeguarded.
	Conscious of the time, I turn to the provisions of the Bill. Clause 1 provides for the setting of a new election date. We hope, as we have said, that it will be possible to hold an election by the autumn, but the Bill sets no fixed date. In our view, setting dates alone will not advance the process—instead, it risks impaling the process on a hook and inhibiting sensible discussion. I know that some hon. Members feel strongly that the Bill should contain a date for the election, but I think that that is much more likely to lead to polarisation and the striking of positions than to a willingness to find accommodations and reach out to others.

Andrew MacKinlay: The Secretary of State will notice from the amendment paper that a common purpose of all the political parties represented in this House is to ensure that the Bill contains a sunset clause, in part to focus the minds of all the parties—with a small "p" and with a large "p"—on the need to reach a resolution. In the event of a failure to do so, it would be appropriate for him to return to the House with new policies and perhaps new legislation, but the Bill should contain a sunset clause—some statement of a date by which either elections must be held, or the Secretary of State must make a fresh statement to the House and start again. It is absurd to leave the matter open. Does he have an open mind on the possibility of inserting a sunset clause?

Paul Murphy: I am certainly happy to listen to the points that my hon. Friend makes and which may well be made later in the course of the debate, but I have to tell him that the Government's preferred option is to ensure that we are able to call elections as soon as possible—in the autumn. He wants to know what will happen in the event of that not happening. I shall reflect on the points that he and others make during the course of the debate.

Nigel Dodds: If the Secretary of State is arguing so strongly now that there should be no date for the next election put into the provisions of the proposed legislation, does he not admit that all the arguments that he advanced only a few weeks ago in favour of a precise date, 29 May, in a previous election Bill, are completely invalid?

Paul Murphy: I would not say that they are completely invalid, because I think that some progress was made during the course of the past few weeks. For example, we had an IRA statement, which was more transparent and discussed and debated than any other such statement that we have heard. Secondly, only two of the answers to the questions of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the IRA were satisfactory. In my view, the third answer was completely unsatisfactory. However, there was some progress. The hon. Gentleman is right to say, of course, that there was insufficient progress. That did not work. That is why there is a danger in putting in a date. We need some flexibility if we are able to go into the talks to ensure that we get the institutions up and running.
	I say to the hon. Gentleman, and to the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley), who referred to the cancellation of elections, that I hope that the Bill as I have described it, and the points that I am making, will ensure that that is not the case, and that there will not be a cancellation. It is a postponement; it is a deferment. It is our intention and desire that elections will be held in the autumn.
	I shall move to the clauses, because perhaps they will add to the points that I am making.

Eddie McGrady: The argument that my right hon. Friend seems to be developing is that it is not possible to fix a date for the next election because we must establish that trust is recreated, if that is the word. I asked earlier, without response, by whom and by what criteria that trust is to be measured. Is that the Government, the right hon. Gentleman's office or individual parties? If it is individual parties, is not the right hon. Gentleman creating an unending veto to a party that does not want to participate in elections?

Paul Murphy: No, I am not. As we have said many times in this place, the veto can easily be exercised by anybody in the Belfast agreement. That lies at the heart of the suspension. It was not the fact that the Social Democratic and Labour party or the Ulster Unionist party did not agree. It was the fact that confidence collapsed because of continued paramilitary activity.
	The hon. Gentleman knows that as well as I do. If I may say so, he spoke eloquently some weeks ago at Prime Minister's Question Time about what was happening in his constituency, when he asked that very question. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman knows more than most in this place about the difficulties to which I am pointing. Although it is possible to say that this party or that party will not engage in the Assembly, at the end of the day every party has a right when it comes to whether or not it wants to engage in the political process, including forming part of the Executive.
	I want—it is what everyone is looking forward to—to find a solution so that all parties can live together to make the Executive and the Assembly work. That will be the thrust of our negotiations and discussions in the months ahead.

Eddie McGrady: The right hon. Gentleman is certainly correct to state that any party can withhold its consent and participation. The point that I am making is whether any party has the right to prevent other parties participating and agreeing.

Paul Murphy: No party is doing that anyway. At the basis of all of this is the fact that we must see an end to paramilitary activity. We can have our debates and discussions about whether a party should have done this or that, but we know what has caused the difficulty. Everybody in Northern Ireland understands that paramilitary activity must come to an end now. We have had five years during which it has been given that chance. Until it comes to an end, there cannot be trust. Some progress has been made over the past number of months, but we need some more time. It is the timing that we are buying between now and the autumn to ensure that the negotiations go forward, that we can sit around the table and discuss these matters and that we can resolve the problem of activity and set up the institutions.
	Clause 2 annuls steps taken towards 29 May election, and provides for return of deposits. That is a great help to members of parties who have already put them down.
	Clause 3 provides for reimbursement of moneys spent both by the political parties and individual candidates in preparation for the elections scheduled for 29 May. We agree with the widely expressed view that Northern Ireland political parties and individuals should be reimbursed for genuine, unavoidable expenditure related to the election campaign.
	The Bill gives me the power to make payments. I will do so in line with a scheme that will be developed by the Electoral Commission. I am grateful to the commission for its willingness to assist us in that task. These proposals are not about the Government subsidising Northern Ireland political parties. They recognise that participating in the democratic process costs money. It is necessary in the wider public interest to postpone the election due on 29 May, but it is only proper that the political parties and individual candidates are not financially disadvantaged by the decision that the Government have taken.
	We also have to deal with difficult questions about the people who operated the institutions in Northern Ireland, and often worked extremely hard for the successes of devolved government that we saw for a period of two years. We cannot avoid the fact that the Assembly is devolved, nor seek to perpetuate the Assembly. However, we hope that those who have been Members, many of them new to public life in Northern Ireland, and who have often made great sacrifices to take part in the political process, will want to remain in democratic politics, and to continue representing the interests of those who were their constituents.
	We have concluded that it is right to pay a continuing salary, rather than a resettlement allowance.

Peter Robinson: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Paul Murphy: I will, but I shall finish the point before the hon. Gentleman intervenes on me. He may be able to taunt me for a bit longer.
	It would not be acceptable either for the salary to be at the rate payable before the election, or that it should last indefinitely.
	Clause 4 gives me the power to fix salaries and allowances, but we shall consult all the parties in Northern Ireland on the detail over the next week or so. In the light of our belief that the previous rates would not be at all appropriate in the new circumstances, we shall review the situation in six months.

Peter Robinson: This is purely a housekeeping matter. It appears that the Secretary of State is proposing that Assembly Members who were elected in 1998 and those who were substituted since then should, in relation to remuneration, be treated as if they were still Assembly Members. Do they have any other rights? Are they allowed to continue to refer to themselves as Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly after the Assembly has been dissolved? Can they use the facilities at Stormont? What is the Secretary of State proposing?

Paul Murphy: I shall come to one or two of those points, if the hon. Gentleman allows me to do so. First, I shall make a general point. As the hon. Gentleman knows—he has been a Member of this place for a very long time—when the House is dissolved, Members of Parliament cease to be Members of the House and cannot continue to use the title MP, but they still get paid. [Interruption.] I understand the point that is being made. That is not for six months. However, Members of this place get paid and they are entitled to use their constituency offices in the pursuance of the best interests of their constituents. At the same time, they would be contesting the election. I know that there is a difference between that and what we are now proposing. That is why I am proposing to pay a reduced allowance but to talk to the parties about what they think should happen. That includes, of course, the hon. Gentleman's party.

Andrew MacKinlay: My right hon. Friend has said that he will consult on what remuneration should be during the duration. I do not mean this facetiously, but he is forgetting about the House of Commons. In my view, we have a right to approve a settlement. After all, the House agrees ultimately the recommendations of independent bodies in respect of their pay and remuneration. It seems not unreasonable that whatever proposals my right hon. Friend makes should be the subject of affirmative resolution in the House of Commons.

Paul Murphy: I am not sure about that. When I was Minister of State, Northern Ireland, I remember meeting some of the Members who are now in the Chamber to talk about various matters of remuneration. Under the powers given to the Secretary of State, and therefore to me as Minister of State, we were able to vary and waiver the amount paid. I am not saying that we should be paying full salaries or the salaries that Members have been receiving over the past number of months. It is incumbent on me to consult all the parties in Northern Ireland—after all, some of them may disagree with me—and that consultation will take place. No one, of course, is obliged to take the allowance.

Andrew MacKinlay: They are.

Paul Murphy: I do not think so.

Richard Shepherd: There is a slight problem, as many people who want to stand will have taken holiday leave for an election that will not now take place. The payment gives a clear advantage to incumbents, who will now have a period of whatever length to carry on propagating the need for them to be returned to the Assembly. The ordinary individual or Ulster person standing for election, however, will be at a disadvantage, as they will not be paid and will have lost out. Having taken holiday leave now, they may be in an inconvenient position when an election is held because they may not be able to take time off to stand.

Paul Murphy: I accept the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but he knows that we get paid too, even if the period is much shorter. We, too, have advantages as incumbents because we get paid, unlike the political opponents who stand against us. However, I think that the House will accept—and I may be speaking against myself here—that Assembly Members in Northern Ireland are in their current position because of a decision taken by the Government with the approval of Parliament. It is not because of anything they have done. Every single Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly expected an election to take place, and ordered his or her life accordingly. It is important to understand that difference when considering our decision to move the election date and its implications for those who have decided to stand for political office in Northern Ireland. However, I take the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) and the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd). We are looking carefully at the position, and shall certainly review it regularly.

Hugo Swire: I should like to follow up the good point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd). What would the Secretary of State say to people who have resigned from their profession to stand in elections that have now been indefinitely postponed, subject to review? What will they do for the next few months, as postponement could go on longer than the Secretary of State expects, and they are without compensation of any sort?

Paul Murphy: If someone resigns from their job before they are elected, they make that decision for themselves but, frankly, to do so is to take the electorate for granted. However, there is a difference between a candidate who gives up their job in the hope of winning and someone who has been an Assembly Member for four years and expected the election to be held on a certain date.

Mike Gapes: My right hon. Friend referred to something equivalent to a resettlement allowance given to Members of Parliament who stand down or lose their seat after an election, but can he give us an assurance that if there is an extended period of payment for former Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, it will be taken into consideration when any future resettlement payments are made? There should not be a bottomless pit of payments to non-elected politicians for a considerable period.

Paul Murphy: People cannot do both things—they must make up their mind whether to stand or not. If a Member of the Assembly has told the relevant authorities that they do not propose to stand for re-election, there is provision for resettlement, as there is in the House. I looked at the question of having a one-off payment rather than a salary, albeit reduced, for Assembly Members, but I thought that that would give the distinct impression that were closing down the Assembly. We are not doing that—we expect an Assembly to be elected again in the autumn.

Michael Connarty: My right hon. Friend referred to constituency offices so what will happen with allowances for Assembly Members for office costs during suspension? Would those allowances be included in remuneration and, as the election period is prolonged, what safeguards can be built in to make sure that offices are not turned into electoral offices for Members who wish to be re-elected?

Paul Murphy: The same rules apply to us. Our own constituency offices are used for parliamentary purposes, not electoral ones. However, I am about to come on to that very matter, which was also raised by the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) en passant.
	We will pay a limited office cost allowance to enable a presence in constituency offices to be retained. I acknowledge the need for the parties, with a return to devolution in prospect, to maintain a modest core of support officials at Stormont. Clause 5(6) therefore permits me also to continue to pay party allowances. Again, those allowances will be based on consultations that I propose to hold with the parties this week and next. The rest of clause 5 makes technical provision consequential on a prolonged dissolution. Clause 6 is designed to permit changes in electoral law necessary to ensure the successful running of the election. Of course, the power could be exercised only in line with the provisions of the Bill. For example, an autumn election would coincide with the annual canvass. At present, the chief electoral officer is required to publish the new register on 1 December. It is sensible to make provision for delaying that slightly if it proves necessary. While I am speaking about the chief electoral officer's responsibilities, I should like to pay tribute to him and the professionalism of his staff in discharging their important responsibilities.
	That is the detail of the Bill. Although it defers an election, it is intended to advance the day when we can restore the devolved institutions in Northern Ireland, and proceed to complete the implementation of the agreement. Political leaders on all sides in Northern Ireland have worked very hard to make the advances that we have seen in the past six months. We must continue that work with even greater energy. The prize of a truly peaceful and co-operative future for Northern Ireland is close at hand, and we must not give up now. I commend the Bill to the House.

Quentin Davies: I am afraid that I must start by reminding the Secretary of State and, indeed, the House that the situation we now face is quite unnecessary. The confusion and mess now confronting us could have been avoided if the Government had adopted a proposal that I put to them last July. I suggested that the House should take powers to enable the Secretary of State—at the time, the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor—to exclude from the Executive any party either in breach of its obligations under the Belfast agreement and the ceasefire or in concert with persons so in breach.
	I made that proposal because, as I told the Government last July, they had not responded to successive, extremely grave breaches of the agreement and ceasefire by Sinn Fein-IRA, so it was sadly inevitable that there would be another. Of course, I did not predict Stormontgate, but I was convinced that the mistaken policy of non-response would, regrettably, encourage future breaches. I told the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor from the Dispatch Box that we should take powers to provide for that so that if such a crisis arose the Secretary of State could use those powers to exclude that party from the Executive. The Assembly, of course, could carry on, and the Executive would carry on without the party in breach.
	Had the Government adopted that proposal, they would have had that weapon in their armoury when Stormontgate duly occurred in October. It would have been possible not to ask the Assembly for a decision—basically, the Social Democratic and Labour party had to bear the onus of the decision to exclude Sinn Fein. The Secretary of State would have had the power to exclude parties from the Executive and could have used it. Sinn Fein would have been excluded back in October, and the Assembly and Executive would have carried on without it. Instead of spending a lot of time negotiating the conditions under which the Assembly could be reinstated or Assembly elections take place, we would be negotiating with Sinn Fein the basis on which it could be allowed to return to the Executive.
	The fact that my idea made a lot of sense has now been proven or at least acknowledged by both Governments, as it is in the joint declaration. They have taken on board the need to provide for discipline in the peace process and the power of exclusion that I proposed last year. Sadly, I must remind the Secretary of State that if the Government had adopted last year the powers that we were prepared to give them very rapidly, none of this evil would have occurred.
	Before I go any further, I shall cite something that the Prime Minister said only last Wednesday—not very long ago. I shall quote him in full without any deletions or manipulation of the text, which often happens when quotes are thrown at us. I quote the Prime Minister straight, from column 690 last Wednesday at Prime Minister's questions. He said:
	"I assure my hon. Friend that we work on our own account and also inside the European Union to promote democracy, good governance and civil rights. It is worth pointing out that, just in the past year or so, there have been elections in Yemen, Bahrain and Morocco, and a referendum has been held in Qatar to approve the new constitution. There are also forthcoming parliamentary elections in Jordan. There is, therefore, a continuing programme of work happening. We and our European partners will do everything that we can to shape the emergence of democracy in the Arab world and to support it, although ultimately these decisions must be for the Arab people themselves."—[Official Report, 7 May 2003; Vol. 404, c. 690.]
	The Prime Minister evidently preaches very different principles abroad from those that he lives by at home. Doubtless, the rulers of the countries that he cited last week could find many reasons—good reasons to them, no doubt—why elections there should be cancelled or postponed, but if they cancelled or postponed them, the Prime Minister would apparently disapprove. He has no such compunction about cancelling elections in Northern Ireland. He can say about the middle east that
	"ultimately these decisions must be for the Arab people themselves",
	but he does not appear to believe that democratic decisions in Northern Ireland can equally safely be left to the people themselves.
	The levity and high-handedness with which the elections in Northern Ireland have been called off is not the only affront to the traditions of our parliamentary democracy that the House has had to face today. There are two further affronts. The first is that, although there was no proper consultation in the House before the Government took the decision—none at all with the Opposition or with most of the Northern Ireland parties, and judging by the evident ignorance of the Leader of the House at business questions less than an hour before the announcement, no consultation within the Government either; and we heard much about the charade of Cabinet government from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) earlier this afternoon—the decision was clearly negotiated privately, in secret, over I do not know how long in advance, with the Irish Government. Indeed, it was traded with the Irish Government, and we know the price, or at least part of the price: the dismantling of the two towers in Armagh. No doubt more of the price will be uncovered in the coming weeks.
	The decision was not merely negotiated in secret with the Irish Government— it was announced by the Irish Minister of Justice, Michael McDowell. There could be no more dramatic illustration of what so-called direct rule actually means under this Government. It is diarchy, or to use the term often used in the island of Ireland, joint authority. Like so much else with this Government, it is diarchy by stealth. No one can have any illusion about that. Important decisions are taken in concert with Dublin. Nobody at Westminster is consulted at all. We are presented with a fait accompli.
	Then there is the unseemly haste with which the Government are trying to force the Bill down the throat of Parliament, publishing the Bill on Friday when the House was not sitting, and expecting us to digest it, to consult—for the Opposition believe that consultation is an essential element of good legislation, even if the Government do not—to draft and table amendments, and to give the Bill all the parliamentary consideration it deserves in the course of one day, now reduced to the course of half a day by the manipulation to which I referred.

Andrew MacKinlay: I should be interested to know whether the Opposition approached the Government business managers, and if so, when they approached them, to ask for more time for the Bill.

Quentin Davies: We had no opportunity to do so. The hon. Gentleman must know that Parliament was not sitting on Friday, when the Bill was published. I did not see the programme motion until this morning. I have not had any conversations with the Government nor, as far as I know, have they made any attempt to consult us, either on the programme motion or on the substance of the Bill.

David Winnick: The hon. Gentleman has been very critical of any consultation between the two sovereign Governments. Is it not a fact that the Anglo-Irish agreement, signed when Lady Thatcher was Prime Minister, first started the process of involving the Republic in matters concerning Northern Ireland, and hence was the reason Ian Gow resigned from the Government?

Quentin Davies: One of the things that I resent most about the Government is their stealthiness. There is no openness about what they intend to do. If they acknowledged that they were planning to run Northern Ireland in concert with the Irish Republic—in co-dominion with the Irish Republic—we could discuss that. But they do not do that. They try to conceal it. That is what I particularly resent. Clearly, it makes sense to have as co-operative a relationship with the Irish Republic as we can in respect of Northern Ireland. I have always been a great supporter of that, but I resent the fact that highly controversial decisions are being imposed on the House by the means that I described, having already been negotiated in private with the Irish Government.

Des Browne: Before the hon. Gentleman moves on, will he confirm two things to the House—first, that he had, by arrangement made between him and the Secretary of State, a draft of the Bill on Thursday, and that there is not one comma of difference between the draft that he was given and the Bill that was published? Secondly, the hon. Gentleman must have made a mistake when he told my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) that he knew nothing about timetabling. He raised the issue with me in the House on Thursday evening, in the presence of other Members.

Quentin Davies: Indeed, I received a copy of the draft Bill, but I did not get a copy of the timetable motion. I have just said in the House and I repeat that the first time that I saw the timetable motion was this morning in the Order Paper. Secondly, I raised with the hon. Gentleman the matter of timetabling, and what is more, I have protested several times to the hon. Gentleman and to the Secretary of State about their proposals to postpone elections in Northern Ireland, but I have never been consulted. Consultation means going to the Opposition and saying, "What do you think? Before we take a decision, we would like to hear your view." That process has never been undertaken by the Government: never with us and never, I believe, with the majority of the Northern Ireland parties. I have been very clear and definitive on that, and I now move on.
	Let us get to the real reason why the Government seek to postpone or cancel the elections. The statements made by the Secretary of State on 1 May, 6 May and this afternoon have been contradictory. There have been different explanations at different times, and we must get down to the real explanation. The right hon. Gentleman claimed on 1 May that the reason the Government wanted to postpone the elections was that Sinn Fein-IRA had not fulfilled their commitments under the Belfast agreement and had not sufficiently clarified their intention of doing so. He reverted to that explanation this afternoon, but it makes no sense. There is nothing new about Sinn Fein-IRA not fulfilling their commitments under the Belfast agreement. If that were the reason for suspending elections in Northern Ireland, it would have been valid months and years ago.
	In March, instead of asking for an exceptional one-month extension to enable all parties to respond to Hillsborough, the Government could have said that there would be no elections unless Sinn Fein complied. That would have been an entirely different Bill to bring before the House in March, but that was not the Bill that the Government introduced in March.
	The only change over the past few weeks is a positive change. On two important items, Sinn Fein-IRA have clarified their intentions in the way demanded and accepted by the Government. We can argue about how positive that is and how near we are to complete fulfilment of the agreement by Sinn Fein-IRA, but indubitably it is a positive step, so it makes no sense to say that elections could have taken place when the situation was worse, when Sinn Fein-IRA had done less to comply, and that they should now be punished for making at least two clarifications out of three.

Andrew MacKay: Is it not always helpful to encourage a sinner to repent? As my hon. Friend says, for a long time the Opposition have complained that the agreement has not been fulfilled in full, particularly by the paramilitaries. Now we have a Secretary of State who is demanding that they fulfil their obligations, and rightly in my view has postponed the elections, and I think that the Opposition should support the Government in that.

Quentin Davies: In dealing with Sinn Fein-IRA, my tactic, which I have always defended from the Dispatch Box, and which seems universally valid in dealing with such situations, is that if people do the right thing, they should be rewarded. If they make a step forward, a step forward should be made to them. If they do the wrong thing—for example, if they breach their obligations under an agreement—some sanction should be taken. They should not be given new concessions. The Government's attitude for most of the past few years has been the exact reverse. When Sinn Fein-IRA have not done what was required under the agreement, they have scratched around for new concessions to offer them, and that has been a disastrous policy. I am sorry to say that it is the policy that the Government seem to be reverting to, offering the destruction of the two observation towers in south Armagh, despite the fact that we still have no comprehensive agreement.

Bill Tynan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Quentin Davies: I shall not give way at the moment. It is the fault of the Government whom he supports that we have so little time for today's debate, and if he suffers from his Government's decision, he must complain directly to those on his own Front Bench.
	Whatever brought about last week's sudden panic by the Government, it was assuredly nothing said or done by Sinn Fein-IRA. In any case, as I have said many times, it would have been as senseless as it is unjust to punish everyone in Northern Ireland for the failings of one party.
	What exactly was the reason for this extraordinary last-minute reversal if it was not to punish Sinn Fein-IRA? Was it because, as the Secretary of State perhaps rather hastily said on 1 May:
	"Everyone has a veto in the . . . process."—[Official Report, 1 May 2003; Vol. 404, c. 465.]?
	I am glad to say that he did not repeat that today, but surely he cannot have meant that in any democratic process any one party can at any time veto scheduled elections taking place at the end of a parliamentary mandate? What an extraordinary idea that is. No form of representative Government could be run on that principle. Anyone who thought that he might do worse in new elections would simply veto them until he thought that he could do better. We would never have elections at all on that principle anywhere. Someone would always have an incentive to veto them. We need a better explanation than that.
	I think that the Government themselves recognise that neither of those two hasty explanations, delivered on that day of panic, 1 May, makes any sense. That is why by the time the right hon. Gentleman made his second statement on Tuesday, and again this afternoon, he had changed his tune, giving a different explanation, a third one. He said that in the present circumstances an election would not produce an Assembly capable of agreeing on an Executive. He said almost exactly what he said on 6 May, when he said:
	"What sense would it have made to proceed if, at the beginning of the election campaign, as it was, we knew precisely that it would have been impossible to have set up an Assembly that could have produced an Executive? What would have been the point of that?"
	Bizarrely, he then added:
	"In exactly the same way, what would be the point of returning Members to this House of Commons when we knew that could never produce a Government?"
	I shall not hold the right hon. Gentleman to that second statement. We can all reach for a false argument or a mistaken simile under pressure.
	I have a lot of sympathy for the right hon. Gentleman, who is an honest man and a genuine democrat, and knows and cares about the people of Northern Ireland, but who finds himself in the position of having to defend a thoroughly misconceived policy imposed on him by the Prime Minister, so I shall not allege that he has some secret ambition to carry out a coup before the next election. However, I do take seriously the main thrust of his comments, which means—it is a serious matter—that the election is to be cancelled because
	"we knew precisely that it would have been impossible to have set up an Assembly that could have produced an Executive."—[Official Report, 6 May 2003; Vol. 404, c. 648.]
	Let us consider that explanation, because several questions arise from it. The obvious one is: how could the Government possibly have known "precisely" the outcome of the elections? It reminds me of Nikita Kruschev's famous remark that the trouble with bourgeois elections is that one never knows what the result will be. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman meant that he knew "precisely" that Sinn Fein could never serve on the Executive because they would not comply with the agreement or complete their clarification of the three points. That is a very different thing. As I have said many times, there is no reason to deny everyone else the right to a democratic election and to a devolved government because one particular party is misbehaving.But how could the Government have known that "precisely" either?
	As I said on Tuesday, there are at least two plausible reasons why Sinn Fein might have been deliberately holding back from completion before the elections. First, they might have wanted to provide for possible new negotiations with whatever combination of other political forces might emerge after the election. Secondly, they might have thought that whatever they did no Unionist leader would be likely to announce that he was satisfied with those statements while still in the throes of an election contest, so they might well have held back.
	Of course, there can be no precision about those hypotheses either. In both cases we are speculating. But I think that on reflection the right hon. Gentleman will concede that what he meant was that there was a risk of a combination of forces emerging that would make it more difficult to bring the peace process to a successful conclusion. But risk is a very different thing from certainty, from precision. It makes no sense to trade a risk of something bad happening for a greater risk of something bad happening. It makes even less sense to trade a risk of something bad happening for the certainty of that happening. I fear, as I shall now show, that that is precisely—if I may use that term strictly for a moment—what the Government have done.
	If the Bill passes today, I put it to the Government that there are two logical possibilities. Either elections will genuinely be postponed—the right hon. Gentleman said on 1 May and again today that his intention is that there should be elections in the autumn, but the Bill makes no mention of that—or they will not happen at all; they will effectively be cancelled. The right hon. Gentleman has rejected that term, but I hope that he will acknowledge that an indefinite postponement is tantamount to a cancellation, with the sole difference again that the Government have not been frank about it. It would be a cancellation by stealth, as it were.
	Let us take the first of those two logical possibilities. If the decision was to postpone, that is only a rational decision to take—given for the sake of this argument that the Government have no constitutional or moral scruples about doing that—if there is a reasonable assumption that the result will be more desirable, more favourable for the peace process, at the later date, perhaps the autumn, when the elections do take place. But nothing that the Government have said this afternoon or at any other time provides the slightest basis for assuming anything of the kind, and I challenge the right hon. Gentleman now to rise at the Dispatch Box and tell me on what ground he assumes that elections in a few months' time, or at any other time that he may care to name, would have a result more favourable for the peace process than elections held on 29 May.
	Surely the setting aside of the constitutional rules will itself, in so far as it has any impact, weaken the credibility of devolution—it can hardly strengthen it—and strengthen parties who have opposed that decision, not weaken them. In other words, the Government's own intervention can hardly be productive in their own terms, and may very likely be counterproductive, and there is no reason why any of the other variables should have changed at all between now and whenever an election takes place.In short, the Government, if they postpone, will have exchanged a risk of things going wrong, as they see it, for a greater risk of things going wrong. That is not good logic and it is not good policy. On the other hand, if the shelving of elections continues indefinitely, at a certain point, it must clearly result in the end of devolution—the complete abandonment, not the temporary setting aside, of the whole structure of devolution set out in the Belfast agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998. In short, in order to avoid the risk of failure, the Government would have brought about the certainty of failure and the definitive collapse of devolution. That is even worse logic and even worse policy.
	Of course, one may argue about how long a postponement would need to be in order to become a cancellation and constitute the end of the process. In normal circumstances, it might be difficult to give a precise answer to that question, but it can be said without hesitation that the longer a democratic process remains in abeyance, the more public confidence in it is eroded and the greater the danger of people abandoning hope or ceasing to believe in it altogether.
	In this case, however, a crucial and precise date is on the horizon. Paragraph 8 of the final section of the Belfast agreement provides for a review four years after the commencement of the devolved institutions. Let me read to the House the relevant passage:
	"In addition, the two Governments and the parties in the Assembly will convene a conference 4 years after the agreement comes into effect, to review and report on its operation."
	I am not sure that the Government recalled that very important provision of the agreement before they took their hasty decision, so I shall, if I may, repeat that quotation:
	"In addition, the two Governments and the parties in the Assembly will convene a conference 4 years after the agreement comes into effect, to review and report on its operation."

Ian Paisley: There is no Assembly, so that does not apply. They got of rid of the Assembly, so we cannot do that.

Quentin Davies: My logic is obviously so compelling that I have carried the hon. Gentleman with me. He has filled in the next line in the equation. He is absolutely right, as the review is an important—indeed, an essential—part of the Belfast process. It is a milestone in the process, or road map, for those who like to use the modish phrase. The process cannot proceed if that review is removed; it will have no route to proceed past that point.
	The removal of any element of such an agreement, except with the agreement of all parties, will invalidate the rest of it. That is the law of all treaties, agreements and contractual obligations. What is more, even if all the parties were agreeable, the sort of review process that is envisaged could not occur if no Assembly was in place. That is exactly the point on which the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) picked up. In such circumstances, there would be no such thing as "Assembly parties". The individuals and parties not represented here would merely be private citizens speaking for themselves alone. They would have no democratic mandate whatever for the purpose of taking part in a review or anything else.
	Thus the provision that the "Assembly parties" would summon the review together with the two Governments would be physically impossible to implement. Could the term be changed—I anticipate the thoughts in the Secretary of State's mind—to "Westminster parties"? That would disfranchise many people in Northern Ireland, but most importantly, it would amount to renegotiation of the agreement—something that the Government have always said is impossible and would be tantamount to the failure of the agreement. That is the Government's judgment and those are their words. What that means is simple and should be very sobering in the Government's own terms: unless the Assembly is restored by 1 December, the peace process will be able to go no further. There is a precise date—I use the word "precise" very strictly—by which elections must take place if the peace process is to survive: 1 December.
	It will now be clear to the House that the Government have made a catastrophic mistake. As a failure of practical judgment, it is on a par with the mistake of releasing all the prisoners without securing any decommissioning in return. In their contemptuous disregard for democratic norms and electoral laws, that mistake is in a class quite of its own.
	What should the Opposition do about that? Clearly, we dissociate ourselves entirely from this lamentable shambles. Many people, including many of my hon. Friends, will say that we can do that most obviously by voting against the Bill here and in another place. That would indeed be the most obvious thing to do and I appreciate the strong feelings of those of my hon. Friends whom I know are looking to me to urge them to do just that. Indeed, I share those strong feelings, but the Conservative party is a responsible Opposition. We never fail to take account of the practical consequences of our actions and never vote except when we genuinely wish for the consequences that will flow from that vote if it is successful.
	So I must ask myself what will happen if we defeat the Bill today or in another place. I fear that that can only make even worse the disaster of an aborted election. Some people would claim that they had lost campaigning time or not secured campaign funds that would otherwise have been available to them because of the uncertainty involved. Some people would no doubt argue, truly or otherwise, that they would have put in nomination papers but for the Government's announcement last week. They would say that it was not their fault, as they took the Government's announcement seriously. Of course, the chaos that ensues will be entirely the fault of the Government. One thing is clear: we will not now be able to have a fair, democratic election on 29 May. Sadly, if the Bill is thrown out, there will be chaos. A postponed election must be a lesser evil than the travesty of an election.
	That is the position of the Conservative Opposition and I hope and believe that it will be the position of others who are equally offended and horrified by what the Government have done and equally sad about the consequences for the peace process of this ill-conceived initiative, but are as concerned as we are to ensure that we do not have in Northern Ireland an election of which all of us would be thoroughly ashamed.

Nigel Dodds: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Quentin Davies: I was about to finish my speech, but I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman. I wish to explain to him why I make this exception. I am extremely sorry that I did not comment in the House about the attack on his advice centre and office at the time when it occurred, but I am afraid that I did not know about it on whichever day it happened. When I referred earlier to Members of the House from all three Northern Ireland parties represented here today having often suffered attacks on their homes and families, he was one of those whom I had in mind, especially in respect of the particularly appalling attack on a child.

Nigel Dodds: I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for giving way and for his remarks. Attacks on any elected representative, no matter what party they belong to, are to be deplored.
	May I ask the hon. Gentleman about the consequences of a defeat of the Bill? Would not those disadvantaged by such an outcome have disadvantaged themselves by taking the advice of the Secretary of State and, for example, not lodging nomination papers? That would be their fault, as people should await the outcome of the democratic vote in Parliament and not listen only to the Secretary of State. People should wait to hear the voice of Parliament and its decision, rather than that of a Minister.

Quentin Davies: The hon. Gentleman has a good intellectual and moral argument. As I have said, I take that view very seriously indeed. He is right. Incidentally, the Conservative party, whose members believe in observing the law as it is, not as it was or might be if we can change it, has of course put in its nomination papers, paid deposits and so forth. We have proceeded on that basis. It is very important for the reputation of this country's democracy, of which we are proud and to which many people around the world have always looked with admiration, that as far as possible we do not have an election if we can see that it will be a shambles.
	The hon. Gentleman knows how controversial everything is in Northern Ireland and I am sure that he can see the scope that would arise for people to say, "I have been unfairly treated and disadvantaged." They would say, "Well, of course, if this had been a decent, proper election I would have won or done well, but I've been done down because of the shambles." I cannot, on reflection, recommend the hon. Gentleman's suggestion to my colleagues, much as I understand the force of his argument and the considerations that will be in the minds of many other hon. Members.
	We have tabled an amendment that would ensure that there is indeed an election later this year. I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that if we reach that stage I may catch your eye so that it is selected. The Liberal Democrats' amendment is very much along the same lines, with a difference of a couple of weeks in the maximum time allowed. We are being slightly more generous to the Government than the Liberal Democrats in that we are giving them another two weeks. If theirs is the amendment that you choose to put to the vote, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to support it, because the central principle is that this must be a postponement, not a cancellation. It is a regrettable shelving of the democratic process in Northern Ireland, and a thoroughly unjustified one, but it must not be something that is even worse than that.

Kevin McNamara: As the Secretary of State will know, I wrote to the Prime Minister on 25 April urging him not to take the gravely mistaken step that we are considering today. The Good Friday agreement is rooted in, and underpinned by, the foundation of the democratic process. Its negotiation was conducted by elected representatives. Its principles were endorsed by referendums north and south of the border. Its Assembly was elected, and its Executive selected, proportionally by the d'Hondt method.
	Cancelling the elections—until there is a date, we must assume that they are postponed indefinitely—is the wrong way to deal with the situation. It sends exactly the wrong message about making politics work. It appears to reject what all the commentators agree is the most significant forward movement by the IRA towards the exclusive use of peaceful and democratic means. It creates a break in the process of implementation that will leave a dangerous political vacuum during the traditionally tense marching season in the coming summer. Political vacuum incites violent alternatives. The Government are seen as fiddling the timing of an election to get the results that they want and as bending the rules to meet the short-term electoral needs of the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble).
	The Ulster Unionists argue that an election should not be held because it will not result in the formation of an Executive, but that is not the purpose of this election. Its purpose is to renew democratic mandates, not to elect an Executive. I referred earlier, in my intervention on the Secretary of State, to the precedent of not electing an Executive. There were 15 months of negotiation before we had the Executive.

David Trimble: This is the second time that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned the so-called 15-month delay. In fact, 12 of those months were occupied by the inevitable and necessary transitional arrangements that had to be made, but there had been an election to an Assembly. As matters stand at the moment, there is no Assembly.

Kevin McNamara: That is precisely why I want an election for the Assembly—to enable the necessary negotiations to continue, hopefully not for as long as 15 months.

Des Browne: My hon. Friend is in danger of falling into exactly the same misunderstanding of the Secretary of State's speech as the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies). At no stage have the Government made any argument—and at no stage have I heard the right hon. Member for Upper Bann, privately or publicly, make any argument—that relates to the outcome of elections. It is about whether the trust and confidence is there to restore the institutions. If my hon. Friend would address himself to that, we would all be debating the same issue.

Kevin McNamara: I understand my hon. Friend's point. I shall come to it in a moment, when I shall perhaps take another intervention.
	The significant point is that the Government's decision means that we will have politicians arguing without a renewed mandate after a long period of time. Cancelling the elections undermines those nationalists who believe in the primacy of politics. It strengthens rejectionists of all shades and gives them a veto on the forward movement of the process. The Government's decision is dangerous and reckless, and they should, even at this late date, step back.
	The Prime Minister has spoken of the need for clarity to promote confidence and build trust. I agree with that. So let us have some clarity in this Chamber. Let us forget the word play, the sophistry and the spin. In paragraph 13 of the joint declaration, the British and Irish Governments restate their long-standing determination that paramilitarism and sectarian violence will be brought to an end— and, indeed, should be brought to an end. Nobody can disagree with that.
	When the IRA made its statement, the Governments acknowledged significant progress but said they were not satisfied. The Prime Minister asked three blunt questions to clarify the republican response. The republicans said that they thought that the IRA's answers were perfectly clear, but the Sinn Fein leader responded to the Prime Minister and expanded on the three questions. According to most commentators, the Prime Minister was satisfied on two counts, but thought that the third answer stopped short. Sinn Fein was told that agreement was "within a whisker", but the Governments wanted a "will" instead of a "should". Mr. Adams came back with the missing word and, according to his own account, the IRA was poised to seal the deal by putting a large quantity of munitions beyond use—except that that did not happen. Instead, the elections were halted in mid-track and the process was thrown into crisis. The Ulster Unionist party, whose members told us at every opportunity that the IRA and Sinn Fein were one and the same, suddenly decided that Mr. Gerry Adams' interpretation of the IRA statement was not good enough—that he could speak only for Sinn Fein. Now, we discover from the IRA that its position is accurately reflected by Mr. Adams.
	So where do the Government stand? On whether the IRA is committed to decommissioning its weapons, they say: the IRA says that it
	"has clearly stated its willingness to proceed with the implementation of a process to put arms beyond use at the earliest opportunity . . . Obviously this is not about putting some arms beyond use. It is about all arms."
	On whether the war is over, they say that the IRA says:
	"If the two Governments and all the parties fulfil their commitments this will provide the basis for the complete and final closure of the conflict."
	On whether the IRA will end paramilitary activity, they say:
	"The IRA leadership has stated its determination to ensure that its activities will be consistent with its resolve to see the complete and final closure of the conflict".
	It has also been said:
	"The IRA statement is a statement of completely peaceful intent . . . Its logic is that there will be no activities inconsistent with that."
	There is a long way to go from the words to bringing about a verifiable end to targeting, intelligence gathering, punishment beatings, military training, arms procurement and all other manifestations of paramilitary activity. However, that is precisely why the two Governments have drawn up their joint declaration, which proposes to establish safeguards and assurance mechanisms to ensure compliance and build trust. Sinn Fein does not like or want that, but it has not said that it will not enter an Executive because of it.
	The mechanism to which the Governments and most of the parties agreed was established through negotiation, not cancelling elections. The question is not therefore whether the Government accept the IRA's statement, but what undertakings they have received that, whatever the IRA or Sinn Fein say, the Ulster Unionist party is prepared to contest the election on the basis of taking its seats in a power-sharing Executive as prescribed by the Good Friday agreement. When has it said that? Would it have been said before the proposed date of the elections?
	Where do we go from here? The two Prime Ministers have met and reaffirmed that the Good Friday agreement is not open for renegotiation. That is right and proper. They have published a joint declaration and stated their commitment to push firmly ahead with implementing measures that flow from the Good Friday agreement and are not contingent on any other development. Progress can and must be made on security normalisation, policing and justice, rights and equality. Forward movement is the best defence against the approaching political vacuum.
	Details of the measures that are needed to complete the process of devolution must be worked through. I am in favour of pressing ahead with the discussion on a Bill of rights and an all-Ireland charter. I am in favour of transferring responsibility for policing and justice matters to the Northern Ireland Assembly and for that to be negotiated as a proposal that will follow elections. I would go further and revisit the whole range of reserved and excepted matters with a view to extending the process.
	I should like more progress on cross-border matters and to re-examine the neglected east-west dimension to find new methods of increasing participation. I should like Unionist representation on the British-Irish Interparliamentary Body. The obstacle to developing all those aims and the brake on such progress is the delay in holding elections.
	There can be no formal review of the Good Friday agreement this side of the elections. For that reason, the democratic mandate of parties involved in negotiations must be renewed. I disagree with the postponement in principle, but if the Government are set on that course, we must ensure minimum damage by setting a new date as early as is feasibly possible. Without the anchor of democratic legitimacy, the Good Friday agreement will drift on to the rocks and might end up a wreck. I believe that none of us wants that.

Alistair Carmichael: As others have observed, we are considering a Bill on Northern Ireland elections for the second time in eight weeks. First, I want briefly to examine the Government's conduct. Since the completion of the Belfast agreement, the Government have rightly placed great stress on the necessity for bipartisanship and partnership in dealing with Northern Ireland matters. My party has always been keen to participate in that process.
	Hon. Members will remember that when the matter was discussed on 17 March, my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) made an important point at the end of his speech. He said to the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. Browne), who is present, that there must be no prospect of a further delay. He continued:
	Although we are not pleased about the change, we understand it, but if that date were to change after such an assurance were given, Ministers and the Government would begin to lose the confidence of the Liberal Democrats, and perhaps of the House in general.[Official Report, 17 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 661.]
	The Under-Secretary replied:
	let me say to all who have sought clarification that the people of Northern Ireland will have a chance to deliver their verdict on 29 May if the Bill is passed.
	He continued:
	I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire for his support, even if that, too, was conditional. I hope that my earlier answer about the election date has matured the conditionality of his contribution.[Official Report, 17 March 2003; Vol. 401 c.691-694.]

Des Browne: What does that mean?

Alistair Carmichael: As one member of the Law Society of Scotland to another[Interruption.] As one failed member of the Law Society of Society to another, I appreciate that there is some ambiguity in the Under-Secretary's words, but on any reasonable construction, he gave us the guarantee that we sought.
	In that context, the Government's actions on 1 May, when they gave no notification of their intentions to the Liberal Democrat party, the official Opposition or any Northern Ireland parties that are represented here, constitute poor conduct. The Government presumed that after they had made their decision and their announcement, Parliament would simply acquiesce in the decision. I did not come here simply to acquiesce in Government decisions. The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) was right to speak about the possibility of chaos, but it would be chaos of the Government's making, and they must be mindful of the possible consequences.
	I believe that the decision is wrong for all sorts of reasons. The Secretary of State said that the people had lost patience and that people wanted the peace process to work. I lost count of the number of references to people and what they wanted. How does one determine what the people want in such circumstances? An election should be held to allow the people to speak through the ballot box. I cannot understand the logic of the Secretary of State's position when he says that he is promoting what the people want but denies them the opportunity to express that.
	The Secretary of State is right to regret the lack of clarity that led to the postponement of elections. However, I do not understand how we achieve clarity by removing the impetus created by the immediacy and pressure of an election campaign. It is a logical non-sequitur. Postponement is bad strategically for the peace process because in removing the impetus of the election campaign, the Secretary of State takes the heat off the paramilitaries, especially the IRA.
	Postponing the elections is also bad for elected politics in Northern Ireland. I get the clear impression from the time that I have spent there that the Assembly has run its course and that the democratic mandate must be renewed to give further legitimacy to its pronouncements. That can only be done through further elections.
	The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford also referred to the need for a paragraph 8 reviewan important part of the agreementwhich should be held by 1 December. If that review is to be meaningful, it must take place after elections. That is why a vacuum will be created without the renewal of the mandate, as the hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) said, and there will be no shortage of strangers to the democratic process who will be only too keen to step in and fill that vacuum, particularly if that gap is allowed to extend over the summer months.
	It is our view that the Government have lost their place badly here. The reason for that is that they now seem to view the peace process as a game to be played between the political parties. That ignores, or perhaps forgets, the context in which the whole process started. That context was one in which the overwhelming will of ordinary people in Northern Ireland was for a peaceful, normal existence. They had got sick and fed up with living under the shadow of violence and they wanted peace. Cancelling the elections removes the people from that process. If the Government were to continue with elections and if the verdict were one that they might regard as being unhelpful, that could only be a challenge to the parties in Northern Ireland to say to the people that they were prepared to find some solution. It should not be the job of Government to second-guess the outcome of elections before deciding to go ahead with them.

David Burnside: The hon. Gentleman keeps raising the question of why the Government postponed the election for some indefinite period. Is he aware, as I am, that the pollingperhaps the Minister might pay attention to this questioncarried out privately by the Northern Ireland Office proved that an immediate election would put a majority of Unionists into the Assembly who were not satisfied with the present implementation of the agreement, and who would force the Government to negotiate something better for the people of Northern Ireland?

Alistair Carmichael: I fear that the hon. Gentleman perhaps overstates the case when he says that polling proved the case one way or the other. There are some very disappointed and redundant politicians in Scotland this week who thought that the security of their future had been proved by opinion polls, but when the actual pollthe one in the ballot boxcame to pass, a very different verdict was delivered.

Andrew MacKay: Name them.

Alistair Carmichael: I will not name them, but none of them was a Liberal Democrat, I am pleased to say.

Ian Paisley: Is the hon. Gentleman taking into account what was found out recently when an opinion poll went against Government thinking and pressure was put on people not to release those figures? When the figures were released, the majority against the agreement was watered down to make it more acceptable to the people who wanted a particular result. I do not know whether that happens in Scotland, but it happens in Northern Ireland.

Alistair Carmichael: All of which surely makes it more important that we have an election, which is the definitive pollthe one with which there really is no argument.
	The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford has referred to the fact that chaos would ensue if we did not now cancel or postpone the elections. I have said that I am broadly in agreement with that. I take the view, however, that the Bill is far too broad in its compass. The Government have shown that they are not particularly well equipped in their adherence to deadlines when such deadlines are in place in primary legislation. I have no confidence that they will improve their performance in any way if one removes the compulsitor of a fixed date. That is why, later this evening, I hope to press to a vote in Committee an amendment tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik).
	That amendment would put a fixed date into the legislation. That is where the Government have an opportunity to redeem themselves from their earlier poor performance in relation to the lack of consultation. I shall listen to the Minister's reply, and hope to hear some sign that he will listen to votes here, and possibly in the other place, where the Government do not have the same overwhelming majority.

Mike Gapes: If there is another deferment to a fixed date, what certainty do we have that that date will be met? Is it not dangerous if we have fixed dates that are unrealistic? The hon. Gentleman spent the beginning of his speech talking about the fact that we now had to deal with a situation in which we had a deferral to a fixed date that proved unworkable. What guarantee do we have that another fixed date would be any more likely to work than the one we have already had?

Alistair Carmichael: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there is no such guarantee. It is infinitely preferable, however, that such a decision should be made in this Chamber, rather than in someone's office in the Northern Ireland Office. That is a fundamental basic principle of democracy, from which we should not be departing. Further to that, all I seek to do is to hold the Government to their own aspiration when they say that they hope that the election will be in the autumn, by fixing a date in October. If that is a genuine aspiration on the Government's part, they should have no problem putting their money where their mouth is, and fixing a date, rather than being vague.

Quentin Davies: I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument with interest, and I very much agree with it. Does he recall that the Secretary of State this afternoon put it even more strongly than saying hoped for? He said that he intended that there would be an election in the autumn, which surely makes it even less likely that the Government, if they thought about the matter sensibly for more than a few minutes, would want to resist the hon. Gentleman's amendment.

Alistair Carmichael: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and his argument has a great deal of force. I thought in passing that the Government have found themselves in difficulties in the past, caught between their policy pledges on one hand, and their aspirations and wishes on the other. I would not want to pursue them too vigorously on that point tonight.
	If I may draw my remarks to a conclusion while I still have some voice to do so, the remainder of the Bill is unexceptionable, in my view. It is proper and decent that measures should be put in place for Assembly Members and their staff to have some degree of certainty. Although I would enter the obvious caveat that we await the details of that provision, I have little quibble with it. I shall be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about clause 6, whose compass seems to have been drawn exceptionally wide. That perhaps shows a certain degree of nervousness on the Government's part, and that they have introduced the legislation in haste. I hope that it will not be a case of legislating in haste and repenting at leisure.

Seamus Mallon: I have a divided mind in relation to some of the elements that we are debating tonight. I abhor a political vacuum. I learned that lesson a considerable period of time ago, after the fall of the then Sunningdale Executive, which was followed by the Northern Ireland convention. I was arrogant enough to make a substantial bet with a journalist that within three months, Humpty Dumpty would be put together again. Thirty years later, the process of doing that began. For that reason, I am almost paranoid about vacuums in a political process.
	There is another reason why I have a divided mind. I listened intently to the Prime Minister at his press conference and to the Secretary of State on two occasions here in the House, and they made what seem to be compelling arguments in relation to what can only be described as the salvation of the agreement in electoral terms. I have to ask myself, given the arguments that they have made: what does the Prime Minister see in relation to the immediate future in the north of Ireland that the rest of us may not see? What insight has he that has prompted him not just to postpone an election, which of itself is a fundamental decision, but to bring about the first significant disagreement between him and the Taoiseach on an issue that is of constitutional importance to the Government of the Republic of Ireland? What has led him to act in a way that is contrary to the wishes of all the political parties in the north of Ireland, except, I understandpossibly, maybethe Ulster Unionist party? In effect, that takes a political process that can survive only on activity and its own dynamism and parks it, stalls it or immobilises it, call it what you like, when it should be challenged to face the problems in front of it.
	The problems that the Prime Minister himself foresaw should be faced rather than parked, and the problems that may arise from the political processthey may arise, as there is no such certainty whatevershould be faced down. The only basis on which they can be faced down is proceeding with an election and getting the mandate for the support for the agreement. I believe that, for those reasons, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State did not make the decision lightly. I have seen them in action at close hand on the issue, and I commend them for the time and effort that they have put into trying to solve this problem. I bow to no one in my admiration for what they are doing and for what they have tried to do. All the more reason, then, to try to probe the Government's mind in relation to the decision. In an attempt to do that, I must ask five questions, some of which are fairly easy and others of which are difficult. I believe that they must be answered, and I shall now talk about the first.
	Having posed in paragraph 13 of the joint declaration the questions to the IRA as to its future activities, the two Governments required direct answers. They wanted absolute clarity, not creative or selective ambiguity, and the IRA was asked to say that there will be no more punishment beatings, no more targeting, no more intelligence gathering, no more procurement of weapons and no more enforcement of exile.
	Those seem to me to be questions that, in their bluntness, could and should be answered by those who are not involved in violence and who, a matter of weeks previously, showed their abhorrence of war in Iraq, yet they refused to step to the mark in relation to things that affect the community in which we live. Punishment beatings are not carried out on people from other parts of the island. They are carried out on people in the same street, in the same townland and in the same parish.
	The refusal to give those answers has been one of the core problems. It has been and could be argued that there are forms of words that, if one wanted to pass and analyse them in certain directions, might lead to a conclusion, but the difficulties of Northern Ireland will be solved not by forms of words, but by the understanding that when people say that a war is overI believe that it has been over this past seven or eight yearsthey also say that the attendant elements of war, such as keeping control of a community through punishment beatings, are over as well.
	I couple policing with that, too. I was rather surprised in the last policing debate on the Floor of the House, when, despite probing, I got little indication that participation in the Policing Board would be, in effect, one requirement for the type of new beginning that is required. So be it. The time will come when that is faced, but I say to the republican movement in terms of the IRA and Sinn Fein, Look what you have done. You have done what one of the parties sitting opposite has failed to do. You have done what the anti-agreement parties could not possibly do. You have created, or possibly recreated, an apolitical situation in the north of Ireland. I hope that it is proud of what it has done. I believe that the community that we all represent deserves better than to have its political process dealt away in terms of paramilitary requirements by paramilitary people.
	In relation to that, I must ask whether come Octobercome the autumnthe approach will have changed and whether the process, including all the forms of words, will recommence. Will we go again for clarity or the studied, creative ambiguity? It will be interesting to see, but surely the experience has been that things are never done the same way twice. Once we have looked at that and asked that question, we have the right to ask what happens in September, October or whenever that period may be.
	The second question is one that I would dearly like to have answered, because then I would be able to make up my mind as to the insights that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State may have had. If the IRA had said that there would be no more of the activities in paragraph 13 of the joint declaration, would the Ulster Unionist party have agreed the joint declaration? I do not know the answer to that, although I would dearly love to know it. Maybe we will get an answer at some stage tonight. [Interruption.]
	I address this remark to the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson): it is not becoming of any person in a political party to stab his own party in the back on such issuesnot just tonight, but on previous occasions. The question has to be asked and answered. Had the IRA stepped up to the mark, would the joint declaration have been accepted and supported by the Ulster Unionist party? I have no doubt that there are those in that party who would have done that, but I have no doubt whatever that there are othersat least four are sitting herewho would not.
	We must look carefully at what we are talking about here: on the basis of the IRA announcing an end to those activities, would the Ulster Unionist party have gone into an election on a pro-agreement platform? It is crucial that we know that, because some people have legitimate doubts. In those circumstances, would the Ulster Unionist party announce an end to the stop-go politics that in effect reduced the operation of Executive decisions in the past five years to 18 months? There have been suspensions, refusals to work with the north-south bodies, postponements and excuses. It is fitting to remember that the first suspensions were determined by the right hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson), and the reason he gave was that it was to save the agreement. That very same reason has now been given by the Government for the postponement of these elections.
	I would like to be convinced that the Ulster Unionist party and those involved with it would proactively support the agreement, which they signed, in this House, in their central council and on the doorsteps in an election. That is crucial not just from a nationalist perspective, but from the perspective of Unionists who want leadership.

David Burnside: The Ulster Unionist Council will speak in its own time and in a clear voice on behalf of the Unionist people. Would the hon. Gentleman put a question to his own party and add to the knowledge of the House and the people of Northern Ireland? If the IRA does not disband, end all its activities and become a normal, democratic party, will the SDLP ever separate from Sinn Fein within the nationalist-republican community and co-operate with other democrats in Northern Ireland?

Seamus Mallon: The hon. Gentleman may be aware that there was a Good Friday agreement, that it was based on the d'Hondt system, that his party is part of that d'Hondt system, that his party helped to agree that d'Hondt system, and that the d'Hondt system is based on inclusion not exclusion. He has tried to make a point of this many times. He would be better employed supporting his own party and the efforts of those in his party who have shown great courage in trying to deal with this matter, rather than going round with a dagger behind their backs at every opportunity.

David Winnick: Should not those such as the hon. Member for South Antrim (David Burnside) show the same courage as my hon. Friend and his colleagues, who over the years during the IRA terror stood up to the bullying, intimidation and threat to life and never once gave in to the terrorist elements who wanted to force Northern Ireland into the Republic without the agreement of the majority?

Seamus Mallon: I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I have referred to the political vacuum. I know what it is for 30 odd years to try to keep a political process going without a forum, without status, and without the means of the political process at our disposal. During those 30 years, we never bowed to the pressures from people in the republican movement who wanted and still want to do us the greatest damage that they possibly can.
	We want an election. The pundits tell us that we would lose seats and that we would be overtaken. I can tell hon. Members and the pundits that that will change, whatever happens to the political process in an election. One of the groupings that this postponement suits best is not the Ulster Unionist party but Sinn Fein. It gives Sinn Fein breathing space and time between its own failures and an election to regroup so as to manipulate the situation. A section of UnionismI am not sure which party those people belong tois trying to create circumstances that are favourable to Sinn Fein.

Nigel Dodds: The hon. Gentleman said that the Belfast agreement was about inclusion, and he referred to the d'Hondt system. Coming from where he comes from in terms of support for the Belfast agreement, does he accept that it was always arguedindeed, it is explicit in the agreementthat parties should be excluded if they are not committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means? Surely the question from the hon. Member for South Antrim (David Burnside) that he failed to answer deserves a response.

Seamus Mallon: The answer is clear. The Secretary of State, at any given moment in time, has the facility and the power to have a motion brought to the Assembly, just as the leader of the Ulster Unionist party has the facility to do that.

Peter Robinson: We exercised it.

Seamus Mallon: The hon. Gentleman exercised it for publicity reasons. For five years he has done nothing but give more publicity to the people whom he is trying to exclude. That is the reality that the hon. Gentleman should consider.
	The third question that I believe should be asked is: will the two Governments jointly recognise that there are faults on more than one side? In the early part of the debate, specifically the Secretary of State's contribution, there was no recognition that there are faults on more than one side. Will the methodology for negotiations continue? Will the Governments continue to show the indulgence that has been shown not to those who properly honour their commitments and the agreement, but to those who break their commitments? There is a feeling in the political process that unless we transgress we will get nowhere. It is akin to the statement that was made to us as a political party when we were told, You know your problem is that you don't have guns. If you had guns, you would be in a better way politically. That was not said by someone from the heartland of south Armagh, but by the Prime Minister, who lives in Downing street and who has been dealing with this process. I am making a serious point. I saw this when I was in office, and I see it now. A political party such as ours, which plays by the rules and does not transgress, is disadvantaged. I put it to the two Governments that it is time they examined their own methodology, stopped coddling those who break all the rules and made them face up to a different approach as to how we go forward.
	I hope that when it comes the autumn and when we get to the next election, as I hope we will, the two Governments will introduce a degree of collectivity into their approacha collectivity that is not based on discussions with parties separately so that no one knows what has been discussed or agreed. In the past seven months, there was no collectivity in any of the decisions made. How can we have a strong political process when parties are encouraged to act individually, not collectively?
	The fourth question is this. If all the things in paragraph 13 are done in October, so much the betterwell and good. But if that does not happen, if the worst fears become a reality, if there are no elections in the autumn and if there is no sign of the kind of movement on all sides that is required, what will the Government do?
	I suggest that the Government have agreed what they will do. It is called the joint declaration, and I suggest that they go and do it, because they have not just political authority but, in the event of the political parties' failure to secure the necessary type of agreement, moral authority. Moreover, institutional arrangements enable it to be done. It would be better if the political parties themselves made the advances, but if the choice is between parking the political process and allowing all the elements that are necessary in the joint declaration to remain, I believe that the Governments have only one option: to implement the joint declaration.
	Finally, there is the fifth question. It is eminently possible that some parties have decided not to negotiate before an election in September, October or whenever it takes place. Some may well be here. Some may well have decided not to negotiate until after the election. Where does that leave the postponement? The question must be considered carefully. At least two parties I can think of would find such a tactic very tempting. The Government must ensure that in no circumstances can negotiations be postponed until after an election in an attempt to garner the best result.
	Let me say this to the DUP. I want it to be an active, organic party in the political process, rather than one that takes the goodies on offer while accepting no collective responsibility for the process. I say that genuinely, because I believe that the more inclusive its politics are, the stronger and better it will be. I say it because I want people to be involved, not excluded, as the hon. Member for South Antrim (David Burnside) suggested earlier.
	Let me end with this appeal. The DUP is a strong political party, strong enough and courageous enough to abandon a position that is in fact apolitical, and will not deliver for the north of Ireland or its members' constituents in the way that it would like. I ask it to join the other political parties in ensuring that this autumn sees a fully fledged working of the Anglo-Irish agreement, including it as well as the other parties.

David Trimble: I apologise to those who speak after me. I fear that duties elsewhere in the House will take me away.
	Reference has been made to the fact that this is the second time in a couple of months that the Government have come to the House to make changes to arrangements in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately I was not present when the first such change was debated, but I have looked at the reports of previous debates, and I rather regret that I was not here on that occasion. I want to say something about the Bill that postponed the election until the 29th, and what was said by the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) at the time.
	Referring to the discussions in Hillsborough at the beginning of March, the hon. Gentleman said:
	The UUP advanced the argument that there should be a delay in the poll, and that there should be a one-year postponement of the election. The morning of the first day, the UUP leader went in and argued for a one-year postponement of the elections. By the end of the day, he was falling back on an argument to put them off until Octoberhe would have been satisfied with a delay over the summer. By the time the meeting finished, and he left early, he was satisfied with a delay of four weeks. Some people say that if he had stayed any longer we would be out campaigning now.[Official Report, 17 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 672.]
	That is good knockabout stuff, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Belfast, East enjoyed saying it. Let me say this to him with all seriousness, however, and I want him to listen carefully. There is not a single word of truth in any of it. The next time he feels like repeating those sentiments, he should bear in mind what I have said tonight. If, knowing the truth, he proceeds to say something that is not accurate, there is a term that will clearly apply.
	Let me make another thing clear[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. These sedentary interventions must not continue.

David Trimble: I want to make something else clear, which refers to comments from the same quarter. My colleagues and I have no fear of an election or of its result. [Laughter.] Indeed, I am confident that when the result emerged some of the laughter we are hearing would be wiped away. I am confident that we would make gains and take seats that some of the Members sitting on my left currently occupy.

Peter Robinson: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

David Trimble: No. I will make my points.

Peter Robinson: rose

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman is clearly not giving way. I remind the House that serious matters are being debated.

David Trimble: I will make my points, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I hope to make them without interruption.
	We were confident about our campaign. The start of the DUP's campaign featured plenty of signs of panic. I am sure that if it had continued in that vein, my predictions would have come true. I will not go into the mistakes that it made during its campaign, because I hope very much that it repeats them when the election comes, and there is no doubt that we will benefit from them.
	The hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) asked five questions. I repeated one of them again and again during the past couple of months, in the run-up to the Government's decision, and I will do so again. The important question, which had to be answered, was this: how would the Assembly discharge its functions? How would it work?
	The Assembly was suspended on 15 October. Technically there is no Assembly. In the event of an election, that question would arise. How would the Assembly function? Given its suspension, in what circumstances, if any, could it resume?
	The issue is there largely because the Northern Ireland Act 2000 was not clearly thought out, and, as I said in the timetable debate, there is an inconsistency between it and the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Had the 1998 Act not made express reference to an election on 1 May 2003, after suspension there would have been no question of an election taking place at all. That is the extent of the inconsistency. Logically, suspending the Assembly and the Executive should have carried through to the suspension of all aspects of it.
	On that first postponement and the circumstances that gave rise to itit may be of interest to the Members to my left to listen carefully again to this pointthe reason for the four-week suspension and the four-week postponement in the earlier legislation was that a party at the discussions in Hillsborough said that it needed four weeks to consult its members in order to deliver the actions that would enable suspension to end. It was not my party that said that. We all know which party it was. The request in effect for the postponement of the election came from Sinn Fein, which said that it needed those weeks in which to consult its party, so that it could come forward with genuine acts of completion.
	I remember pointing out to my colleagues that the postponement, which was to give Sinn Fein time to do what we all knew was necessary, would have certain implications if it failed to do that; that logic was there, too. Indeed, one thing that Members should bear in mind when they look at recent actions is that, in a sense, republicans, and others besides just republicans, were using the issue of elections to delegitimise suspension, to try to find a way around suspension and to force resumption in circumstances that would be advantageous to them. That explains why republicans ran down the clock, went past the last minute and then came forward with a statement that was clearly inadequate, bowling it short again in the hope that, by that time, the Governments would be so desperate that they would grab at an inadequate arrangement. The republicans' aim was to force resumption without their having to give up all forms of paramilitary activity.
	That is the subtext of what has been happening over the past number of weeks and I am glad that the Government did not allow republicans to succeed in that manoeuvre. I regret the fact that the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin was taken in by it. I confine my criticism there to the DFA and I have good reason for confining it to that. As I say, I am glad that the Government stood firm on that and did not let republicans manoeuvre them out of suspension, because that essentially was the issue.
	The question is: what do we do from here? It is very well to argue, as some of my colleagues have, for the option of looking at some form of exclusion. We argued against suspension in October. We argued that the Governments should do what the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh saidthat the Secretary of State should send a motion to the Assembly. It was at that time that the argument that the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) advancedof the Government taking on themselves powers to deal with the situationwas most apt, and perhaps that is where we look in terms of the future. It is perfectly right to argue for developing those new powers and for that form of exclusion if republicans will not do the necessary acts of completion. The reality is that to press for an election while the Assembly is suspended is to do the work of Sinn Fein-IRA. I am afraid that some Unionists are being blinded by their own personal ambition, their desire to get back into office and to continue to share power with Sinn Fein, not realising that they are doing the work of the republican movement.

Nigel Dodds: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

David Trimble: No.
	My final query is to the Government: how do they plan to bring about an ending of suspension in circumstances that will enable the Assembly to function properly? It is all very well for Government to say and to give the hope that, somehow in a month or two or whatever it may be, we will be able to come back and to proceed in the way we all want to, but the Government must think seriously about how they are going to do it. There is something that they should consider and move forward. The Secretary of State has touched on it this evening. That is, to go to those measures for monitoring of paramilitary activity, for having appropriate remedies and sanctions for that and to bring those forward as rapidly as possible. Therein lies the lever that we need to move the republican movement that bit further.
	My preference in these matters, as always, is to see the political process in Northern Ireland function, and to see the agreement fully implemented and operating on the basis of the principles that we agreed, the most important of which is, of course, that it operate by exclusively peaceful and democratic means. Exclusion is a second best but it is preferable to the situation that we are in now. I rather suspect that, were the Government to bring forward those provisions, including the new power for Her Majesty's Government to act, that would be the lever that made republicans face up to the reality that they have to move, and I hope the Government will do that before the autumn comes and before we have to come back to this issue again.

David Winnick: No one is likely to be happy that the situation remains unsettled in Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, I believe that in the circumstances the Bill is right. I have been from the start an ardent supporter of the Good Friday agreement. It is, in my view, the fairest way for the Province to be governed on behalf of both communities. I have said before that if the people on the mainland had had the opportunityI am not saying that they should have had itto vote on the Good Friday agreement, the majority in favour would have been even greater than in the Irish Republic. That point should not be overlooked by Unionists, whether they are for or against the agreement.
	We cannot compare the situation with which we are faced with the other devolved institutions that have been set up since 1997. No one would ever imagine a Minister proposing the postponement of elections for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or the London Assembly. It is as unlikely to happen as any attempt to extend in peacetime the powers of this Parliament. We know that to be the position. However, the situation in Northern Ireland is unique within the United Kingdom, although, sadly, not in the wider world, with two very divided communities with a long history, going back two or three centuries, of antagonism, suspicion, bloodshed and mutual distrust. That is why it is so important to have all-inclusive, power-sharing Government in Northern Ireland.
	When I was out of the House in between seats, my view on the Sunningdale agreement, negotiated by the Conservative Government of Edward Heath, was that it was the right approach. Some who opposed such power sharing later came to the view that, in different circumstances, it was right to have such power sharing as in the Good Friday agreement, but the Sunningdale agreement was destroyed on the ground and we know what happened in the years that followed.
	I hope that the leader of the DUP will recognise that what I am now going to say is nothing personal. He has been in the House long enough. I do not wish to make any personal remarks, but he has said repeatedly that he is totally opposed to the Good Friday agreement and that his party is so opposed that no matter what Sinn Fein does or does not do, it will never go into Government with Sinn Fein. That has been the position that he has adopted, although a representative of his party was in the Executive when it was functioning. In this unsettled situation, an election that produced complete deadlock would satisfy only those who are determined to destroy the agreement.
	I do not know what the outcome of any election would be. We have been told by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble), who leads for the main Unionist party, that he was confident that his party would do well. No one can predict election results, but if there were an election result that meant that the DUP was the largest party on one side and Sinn Fein on the other side, we know that there would be complete deadlock. That is precisely the position that those who are opposed to the agreement want to produce. I do not want that position to arise and, although I do not like elections being postponed and I accept that there is a good argument for saying that they should not be postponed, I would rather the measure went through so as to save the agreement. I hope that in so arguing I am not being anti-democratic. [Laughter.] I would say that my track record demonstrates that I am certainly not anti-democratic.
	The republican movement has gone a long way towards accepting that its perfectly legitimate overall objective of a united Ireland can come only through the use of constitutional and democratic means. One of course wishes that that had been the policy of the republican movement from the very beginning. A lot of bloodshed on both sides would have been prevented.
	I repeat a point that has been made previously. Sinn Fein has accepted the legitimacy of Northern Ireland being part of the United Kingdom. As we know, over the years, it totally denied that. It said that Northern Ireland was a statelet and that Ireland had no right to be divided. Sinn Fein took no account of the majority view in Northern Ireland. That has changed and I welcome that, as I am sure everyone does. It is part of democracy to accept the wishes of the majority.Arising from the Good Friday agreement, articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution, which laid claim to Northern Ireland, have also gone following a referendum in the Republic.
	Having rightly gone so far, the republican leadership is now required to declare that all forms of paramilitary activity and violence will cease. That is not asking too much. It should take the final step. Although Sinn Fein denies that it is directly involved, the activities that have been carried out by the IRA since the Good Friday agreementthe punishment beatings, the hooliganism and the other activities that in no way can be equated with the actions of a democratic partyare totally unacceptable. One can understand the feelings of those Unionists who are in favour of the Good Friday agreement, but who take the view that, in those circumstances, it is not possible for the agreement to be fully implemented. Although this possibility does not arise because of the arithmetic in the Irish Republic, the Taoiseach has said that he would not be willing to enter into an agreement with Sinn Fein as long as that party was associated with a republican organisationthe IRAthat carried out the activities that I have just mentioned.
	I hope that we can get the agreement working once again and that elections can take place this year and will not be indefinitely postponed, although much of the responsibility for that lies with the IRA. We know that the majority of Unionist Members elected to the House are opposed to the agreement.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: indicated assent.

David Winnick: I see the hon. Gentleman nodding. However, I hope that those Unionists who are in favour of the agreement have the necessary courage to argue for the agreement and to explain why it has been of the benefit that it undoubtedly has been. The Secretary of State has produced on several occasions figures for the number of people who are alive who would not have been if it had not been for the agreement and also for the upturn in the economy and the jobs that have been created. They are all substantial gains for the people of Northern Ireland. That is why I believe it necessary for those Unionists to have the courage to overcome the hostility not only of the DUPin no circumstances would it be in favour of the agreementbut inside the Ulster Unionist party. They should argue the point at branch level and at every level up to the executive to demonstrate that they believe in the agreement. They should not be on the defensive and, whatever the difficulties may be, they should explain that the agreement is good for the people of Northern Ireland as a whole.

Gregory Campbell: The hon. Gentleman has gone to considerable lengths to establish what the Unionist Members of the House who are in favour of the agreement should do. However, he also accepted that a majority of them are against the agreement. If he accepts that, why can he not accept that that is the will of the Unionist community and the way in which it sees the agreement?

David Winnick: The DUP takes a position and it will serve no purpose for me to repeat it. However, the Ulster Unionist party is in favour of the agreement. As I have said, the hostility within that party must be overcome. After all, other political partiesmy party and the Conservative partyhave all had internal battles in our day. If we believe in a certain view and think that it is in the best interests not only of our party but of the country as a whole, we have to argue our case.
	It is not for me to say this, because I was on the other side of the argument when the Prime Minister took a view about clause IV and public ownership. He believed that it was necessary to change that clause and, at the time, I believed that he was wrong. However, he argued his point of view against a great deal of hostility inside the party and he won the day. That is my point to those who are in favour of the agreement.

David Burnside: I think that I am probably the best example on the Unionist Benches tonight. I voted for the agreement, but you are asking me to campaign as an Ulster Unionist Member of Parliament who voted for the agreement. How can you expect me, as someone who feels conned by the agreement

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should use the correct parliamentary language.

David Burnside: Thank you for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	The hon. Gentleman asked Members like me to campaign for the agreement at branch level. Does he not understand that that is impossible when we feel that we were conned by the accompanying promises from the Prime Minister? The hon. Gentleman must know that, as we have repeated the point many times in the House. Sinn Fein has not gone down the democratic route and we will not sit in government with a terrorist, military and criminal organisation. It would be dishonest of us to look the electorate in the face and to campaign on behalf of the agreement as it now stands.

David Winnick: I do not believe that that is the view of the right hon. Member for Upper Bann. He speaks with greater authority on behalf of his party than the hon. Gentleman. There was no conning, and the very fact that the Bill is being introduced now demonstrates the commitment of the Government, together with the Irish Governmentthey are both sovereign Governmentsthat all forms of paramilitary activity by the IRA must cease absolutely.

Roy Beggs: I put it to the hon. Gentleman that words from the IRA will be no more acceptable to the leader of my party than they would be to me and other Unionists in Northern Ireland. The hon. Gentleman must exhort Sinn Fein-IRA to demonstrate their commitment visibly as well as by declaring that the war is over. We must see the decommissioning and the destruction of the weapons and explosives that have been used against us for 30 years.

David Winnick: Of course no one argues with that, and the IRA must demonstrate such action on the ground along the lines that the hon. Gentleman pointed out. I want that to happen. If one drew up a list of hon. Members who have least defended the IRA's activities in any way, I would be very high on that list along with Northern Ireland Members. I doubt whether I would be challenged in any way for the years and years in which I have demonstrated my total opposition to all forms of terrorist activity. If I may reminisce, when I met the top leadership of Sinn Fein 20 years ago this September, I said that no British Government would ever give up Northern Ireland, irrespective of any terror applied, because Northern Ireland could not be given up against the wishes of the majority of the people.
	If the IRA demonstrate what the hon. Gentleman and I want to see, I would expect him to argue for the agreement, to defend the agreement and to make the point with which I started and conclude my speech: the fairest way to govern Northern Ireland is through power sharing or inclusive government. That is the only way in which Northern Ireland can be governed in a democratically acceptable way.

Andrew MacKay: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick). He speaks a lot of sense on Northern Irelandif not necessarily, in my view, on everything else. I have considerable sympathy with his support of the Bill.
	We should go back a little and remind ourselves of why the Executive ended: because Sinn Fein-IRA failed to fulfil their part of the Belfast agreement. The situation came to a head when it was discovered that members of Sinn Fein-IRA had infiltrated Stormont. The right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) rightly refused to continue to serve as First Minister, which is why the impasse occurred.
	In parentheses, it is worth reminding ourselves that the new Chief Constable, Hugh Orde, apologised to Sinn Fein-IRA for the way in which their members were arrested in Stormont for what most of us would consider to be a serious offence. That situation is in marked contrast with what recently happened to Liam Clarke, the distinguished journalist of The Sunday Times who, with his wife and eight-year-old daughter, was woken up by armed police officers at 2 am. He had his study door smashed down although he could provide a key and was held in custody for 23 hours. I hope that the Secretary of State will make a statementalthough clearly not tonighton that disgraceful episode, which has brought the police force in Northern Ireland, and the rule of law in our country, hugely into disrepute. However, I think that I am straying out of order because that is not directly relevant to the Bill.
	The Secretary of State will recall from his time as Minister of State for Northern Ireland that, although I have always been passionately in favour of the Belfast agreement, I have been critical of the Government at times because they have not fully implemented it. In fact, he and the hon. Members for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon)I much admired his brave speechand for Walsall, North have accused me of not always adopting a bipartisan approach on Northern Ireland. When I was shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, I always said that if I did not think that the Government were right, I reserved the right not to support them and to criticise and disagree with them. I am sure that my successor also reserves that right.
	My principal concern has always been that the men of violence, whether so-called loyalist or republican, have all too often got away with it. They have not ended their violence by any stretch of the imagination. As the hon. Member for East Antrim (Mr. Beggs) said in a pertinent intervention, words are not enough; there must be action. I was pleased that the hon. Member for Walsall, North confirmed that that is the case.
	We need action: the end to punishment beatings, the end to intimidation and extortion, the end to the surveillance of possible targets and the decommissioning of all illegally held arms and explosives. Some, but not quite all, of the Secretary of State's predecessors, especially the first Secretary of State, Mo Mowlam, have come close to adopting a policy of appeasement. Had they stood up to the men of violence, we would not be having this debate and the Executive would not have been suspended.
	As I said when I intervened on my successor as shadow Secretary of State, I believe that when sinners have repented, they must be much encouraged. The Secretary of State has made absolutely the right decision. He said that the decision was difficult. It must have been. No democrat or Parliament loosely and without careful consideration postpones or cancels an election, but the decision was right. Many Conservative Members strongly support the Secretary of State, contrary to the impression that may have been given by my Front-Bench spokesman. Many of those people have great experience of Northern Ireland and have held ministerial office there.
	It is important to stand firm. The right hon. Member for Upper Bann was correct, as he so often is, when he said that IRA-Sinn Fein had played their normal clever game. They had given a little, which looked quite good, but it was nowhere near enough. To have succumbed to them by allowing the elections to go ahead and the Executive to be formed again would have been an absolute and complete disaster.
	If I may say to the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), it is a little naive to think that when IRA-Sinn Fein make tiny concessions after doing so little for so long that somehow they should be rewarded, which is what he suggested the Secretary of State should do. I think the opposite and am anxious for the right hon. Gentleman to introduce legislation to allow him and his Government to exclude Sinn Fein from the Executive if the IRA fails to fulfil all its obligations under the agreement. If that were introduced in the summer, there would be a real possibility of elections taking place in the autumn. I think that Sinn Fein-IRA realise that the Government are serious, which is why I am anxious to back the Government tonight. Only by pursuing that route will we see a distinct change of attitude from Sinn Fein-IRA.
	I wish the Government well and will support them in the Division Lobby. It is essential that the House send a clear message to the men of violence by voting by a large majority to suspend the elections for the reasons outlined by the Secretary of State.

Andrew MacKinlay: It is right in such a Second Reading debate for members of the parties with a primary interest in Northern Ireland to paint the backdrop to how we got to this position, but I want to address the precise contents of the Bill and its glaring omissions.
	The first omission is that there is no time limit. Various people, including members of the Democratic Unionist party and the Social Democratic and Labour party, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), have tabled amendments that would ensure that the elections take place within a certain period of time. The alternative was to include a clause to ensure that the Act expired if the problem was not resolved. If the Bill reaches the statute book, it is important that it is not open ended. It should not lay there in perpetuity. It needs an end.
	If the Government think that the elections have failed or should not proceed, it is incumbent on them to come to the House of Commons to explain why and to propose how we move on. Everyone needs an opportunity to discuss how we should proceedwhether the d'Hondt system should continue for the Assembly and Executive, or whether one of the parties should be excluded, for example. The important thing is that the House is reported to and we make the decision in quality time, which we are being denied this evening.
	I hope that consideration will be given, either in the winding-up speech or in another place, to including an element in the Bill to ensure that it expires if the objectives that the Secretary of State wants to achieve are not resolved in the autumn. The autumn can be compared to a long piece of elastic. It needs a definite end, and that end should be stated in the Bill.

Martin Smyth: So elastic is the provision that salaries will continue to be paid to current Members of the Legislative Assembly who plan to stand again. When will that cease if we go beyond the autumn?

Andrew MacKinlay: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because that brings me to other matters dealt with in clauses 3 and 4, wham bang in the middle of the Bill. The Secretary of State said that he wanted to facilitate the political parties' having some resources during the period of interregnum. I am happy about that, provided that we know what the ground rules are. Apparently, the Electoral Commission is to be invited to make recommendations to the Secretary of State, who will make a scheme; but the scheme is then his property, and that seems wrong. As a matter of principle, the scheme should be brought to the House of Commons for approval. Why should it not be? Surely it is appropriate that we have the opportunity to discuss it in relation to the funding of political parties. I see that the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) wishes to intervene again. I will give way, but I wish to develop my point.

Martin Smyth: May I press the hon. Gentleman on that point? One reason for continuing to support the parties is that they will consider ways to bring the Assembly back into beingbut will they be doing that all the time? Furthermore, will not candidates who have given notice that they wish to stand and who will have to carry on their own work without such remuneration be put at an unfair disadvantage?

Andrew MacKinlay: Indeed, and I intend to discuss the positions of candidates and existing Membersor perhaps I should say resurrected Members. Clause 4 is a resurrection clause: in resurrecting from death to life in excess of 100 people it achieves something that was not achieved even in the Bible. If we had more time, we could explore the fact that that resurrection clause brings back to life those who are politically dead.
	I do not want to be deflected from the subject of the resources for political parties provided for under Clause 3. The House of Commons should approve the scheme because we are the custodians of the public purse. We have to ensure that the ground rules are applied equally to all political parties. We also have to ensure that there is no abuse and prevent abuse arising. To buttress my point, let me give one illustration. I have seen a letter not from a malevolent MLA but from someone who used the Stormont free post to encourage people to sign on to the electoral register. We all want people in Northern Ireland to sign on to the electoral register, but my impression is that using the free post to promote that was contrary to the rules. I do not use that example to complain about that person: I think that they were filled with the best possible motivesbut I do not think that that is what the free post was for. Earlier, the Secretary of State said from a sedentary position that Stormont MLAs' free post would not continue, but he did not tell us precisely what other arrangements would be made. We should be told, and that is why the scheme should be examined by the House of Commons.
	The hon. Member for Belfast, South mentioned those who seek election to the Assembly and existing Members of it. I am perturbed by the fact that all the political parties in the Assembly have MLAs who consciously want to give upthey do not want to go on. They include the Presiding Officer Lord Alderdice, Sir John Gorman, and Brid Rodgers, the Social Democratic and Labour party Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development. A number of people across the political spectrum want to finish, but under the Bill they have no alternative but to continuethey are to be resurrected from the dead whether they like it or not.
	What is more, the Bill contains no provision for such people to resign. Under the 1998 legislation, MLAs wishing to resign have to submit their resignation to the Presiding Officer. The Bill, however, does not resurrect the Presiding Officerthe office does not exist. That shows why we wanted a Committee stage on the Bill. It is an important matter of principle that those who do not want to take the new, albeit reduced, salary and do not want to fulfil the functions of a resurrected MLA should be able to decline to do so. Presumably, although the Secretary of State has not declared on this point, allowing them to do so would give the political parties the opportunity to replace them. What is to happen to those filling casual vacancies during the interregnum? Unhappily, some could be deceased. Would they be succeeded under the existing system, or would their place expire? We have a right to be told, and that is not happening at present.
	I am not unsympathetic towards the salaries of resurrected MLAs, but I was surprised that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State brushed aside my intervention earlier. Perhaps I did not make myself fully understood. It seems right, however, that whatever remuneration and resources are made available to them should be subject to parliamentary approval. What is wrong with that, especially given that the Bill might be passed open-ended without a conclusion clause?
	It is worth considering that those people will be paid and will have their offices in the high street. I have told the House that I am not bursting into tears over that; I am not opposed to that approach in principle. Indeed, they should have something to do. There is a small provision in clause 5 whereby we in the House will be the only people who can refer matters to the Northern Ireland ombudsman. Why cannot the resurrected MLAs still have that function? People will enter their high street offices to complain. I have been into MLAs' offices to listen to people. They have come in and said, I want you to tell that Tony Blair about this and that. They raise the war of Iraq with MLAs. Occasionally, however, they raise issues relating to maladministration or the Departments of the Northern Ireland Office. During the interregnum, surely MLAs who have no other function should be empowered, along with Members of this place, to refer matters of complaint to the Northern Ireland ombudsman.
	Finally, I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to reflect on clause 6. It is drawn extremely widely in a way that can be described only as potentially open to abuse. The Bill is hurried and I have to say that it is ill thought out. I have tried to demonstrate in the past few minutes that it is not comprehensive. Reluctantly, however, I would sign up to the fact that he needs a power, apparently, to alter anything in the Act of Parliament that he has forgotten about or has not anticipated. That is basically what clause 6 does. It says that that procedure will be subject to the affirmative resolutions of both Houses of Parliament. I accept that, albeit reluctantly.
	Clause 6 also provides, however, that if that is not expedient the procedure does not have to have the affirmative resolutions of both Houses of Parliament. The Bill as drafted allows a Secretary of State to alter by statutory instrument, without reference to Parliament, any aspect of the Bill. He can add, retract or amend after Royal Assent. That makes a mockery of our law-making process. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. Browne), tells that that is not the case. I would like him to justify that. Surely our purpose is to scrutinise legislation, which is precisely what we are not doing this evening. We are giving the Secretary of State a blank cheque to do anything within the long title, if the Bill becomes an Act, without further reference to Parliament. I find that repugnant.
	We are told that the House of Lords may have longer than us to consider this matter. That is breathtakingly arrogant. I hope that the other place will consider some of these issues and improve the Bill. Better still, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, with some humility, or the junior Minister, will at least say that those of us who have raised points such as those that I have set out will consider them overnight and invite their supporters in the House of Lords to introduce amendments to what is a wholly inadequate and rather shabby Bill.

Ian Paisley: I wish to put on record my utter condemnation of the behaviour of the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) this evening. It flew in the face of all the laws and characteristics of this debating Chamber, and I have been here for more than 30 years. I refer to the way in which he attacked my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) and then told the House that he was leaving immediately. He refused to give wayhe refused to accept interventions, then fled the House. The Holy Book saith:
	The wicked flee when no man pursueth.
	That is how the right hon. Gentleman fled the House. Such conduct is a disgrace, and people in Northern Ireland will be saddened that a representative from Northern Ireland should act in that way. Strong attacks are made in this House, but if you are not prepared to take the heat, you should get out of the kitchen. I have taken a lot of heat in the House, with almost every Member yelling at me and getting to their feet to shut me up, but I will continue to make my points. I regret that the hon. Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick) is not in the Chamber, as I would like to tell him that no parliamentary Chamber will make me sit down with the representatives of a movement founded on murder, bloodshed and the most criminal of acts. No Parliament has the right to tell a man he must sit in government with such a person. I have the right to say who I will sit in government with.
	I do not run from the peopleI go and fight every election. My record stands above that of any other politician, whether in the United Kingdom or in Northern Ireland. I have the best voting record, and have had the best support throughout Northern Ireland. I fight my corner and make my speeches, but if I am attacked, I listen and reply. I trust that I give as good as I get, but that is for the people to decide. The behaviour of the leader of the Ulster Unionist party in telling the House that he was sorry that he was not here a fortnight ago, then taking the opportunity to attack the integrity and trustworthiness of a colleague of mine in the House without giving way or providing any opportunity for interventions is to be condemned. The House would say exactly the same if any other Member of Parliament behaved like that.
	I do not want to be distracted, but it has been said that the right hon. Gentleman has a good record. Consider that when he was reselected for the seat that he is to fight, he did not win the first voteanother Unionist did. He nearly lost his seat in the last Westminster election, and may do so at the next one. No one should be deceived by his pretence that he is in control of the situation. I noticed that he did not say in the House what mistakes we made in the general electionour best yet, as we returned more Members than ever to the House. Happy mistakes! I hope that we will make a few more in the next election and achieve similar results. Those matters should therefore be laid to rest.

Peter Robinson: Before the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) scurried out of the Chamber, he made a prophecy that the Ulster Unionist party would sweep all before it in the election. He was not worried about it, and was content that the UUP would win. Does my hon. Friend recall that the right hon. Gentleman said before the Westminster election of 2001 that his party would increase the number of its members returned to the House? He predicted that there would be 10 of them sitting on this Bench. Would my hon. Friend care to count them?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) responds, let me say that it might be as well if we moved on to the contents of the Bill. I understand the hon. Gentleman's concerns, but it would be a good idea if we moved on to the Bill.

Ian Paisley: All I can say is that the people of Northern Ireland will give their verdict, if they get a chance. It is clear from the discussions tonight that Government Members well know that the Government have acted in order to save the scalp of the right hon. Member for Upper Bann. The ordinary people of Northern Ireland have a deep hatred of, and are not prepared to sit down with, murderersthose who murdered their own co-religionistsbut the ordinary people will have their say, and loudly.

Mike Gapes: rose

Ian Paisley: I am not giving way, as it is five minutes to 9. I am the leader of the second largest Northern Ireland party in the House and I have been called almost at the end of the debate.

Mike Gapes: rose

Ian Paisley: I am sorry, but I am not giving way. The hon. Gentleman will have to contain himself for once.
	Let me tell the House that this matter is not about postponing the election. I noticed that many speakers used the word that I used in the first part of the debatecancelling. This is a cancellation. If it were a postponement, we could have autumn defined. I ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who comes from Wales, a beautiful Principality that I dearly love, when autumn starts and ends in Wales. Perhaps at the end of the debate he will do so through the mouth of the Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office, who comes from Scotland. Then, I, an ignorant man from Ulster, will know when autumn starts and ends. The Secretary of State need not smile; he should tell us. The one thing that worries me is the idea that the position has to be clear. Clear to whom?
	The IRA has carried on its ravaging without apology. I read a statement the other day made by its deputy leader, Mr. McGuinness, who said that the IRA had no apology to make for the stand that it had taken historically in Northern Ireland and throughout Ireland. There was no sorrow in the hearts of IRA members for their own co-religionists who had suffered seriously at their hands.
	I think of the broken-hearted mother in the city of Londonderry who asked Mr. McGuinness whether her boy could come home. That was Mr. Hegarty, and Mr. McGuinness told the mother, Bring him home. Let him call on me, and all will be well. Mr. Hegarty came home, called on the gentleman concernedI am sorry to use that term to describe such a brutal manand in a few days, Hegarty's body was found. The man who told his mother to bring him home had killed him. He came home to die.
	The House asks me to sit down with that man in government. We will not sit down with him. Let me tell the hon. Member for Walsall, North that members of the Democratic Unionist party never sat down at any time in the Northern Ireland Executive. We did not attend it.
	I am sorry that the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) is not present. He has gone. I am sorry that he made an appeal for me to change. He was the very man in the Assembly who worked to put the Democratic Unionist Members out of Government. He joined the right hon. Member for Upper Bann to call them rogues, who should be thrown out. There he stands tonight, his hair as silvery and his tongue as golden as ever, pleading with me to join them. We will not be going that way. The House should realise that if we are to have democratic government, the Government must be chosen by the people. People cannot be nominated to such a Government; the voice of the people must be heard.
	When the election was postponed from 1 May to 29 May, the Minister of State, who is in charge of security in Northern Ireland, said that the Government were allowing a short delay to give the parties the opportunity to reflect. What happened? They then decided that a further delay was needed, but that delay was no longer a short delay. Today's delay will be until the autumn, and now we have to find out when the autumn starts and when it finishes. What we are debating tonight is a cancellation.
	I smiled when the hon. Member for Walsall, NorthI am glad he is back in the Chambersaid that he was a good democrat, and I do not doubt that. But when General Pinochet cancelled the elections in Chile in 1973, he was not a good democrat. When General Abacha of Nigeria suspended elections in June 1993, fearing that his opponents would win, he was not a good democrat. The President of Sri Lanka postponed elections in August 1998. Perhaps Northern Ireland is best likened to the Ivory Coast, where the general stepped in to stop the election campaign in October 2000 and took control of the main vote counting centre. The Secretary of State has taken over the electoral offices and has told everyone: no elections.
	Ulster people should be allowed to exercise their franchise. The SDLPwith which I have had many differencesbelieves that there should be voting. Even the IRA-Sinn FeinI give them no credit whateversay that they are for elections. The only person who has set himself against the elections is the person who fled from the House in confusion tonight. He does not want the elections. He does not want them because he does not like what will happen at those elections. Everyone knows it. The dogs in the street know what has happened. It is the fundamental right of the people to pass judgment. One cannot force people to pass judgment against their will. The people will vote. They will want to vote.
	It is a sad reflection that Members should appeal to Unionists to go out and sell something that the Unionist population abominate. They abominate it because they did not vote for a referendum on the agreement. Many of the people who voted in that election never read the agreement. They voted because of graffiti written on the wall by the Prime Ministerpromises that there would be no gunmen in Government. Guns or Government was the slogan that the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) used. We were promised that there would be no amnesties and that things would be different, and our people went out and voted. They voted because they believed in what the Prime Minister said. But they do not believe him today.

David Winnick: Is the hon. Gentleman in effect saying that there have been no gains whatever since the Good Friday agreement of four years ago; it is purely negative, is it, in his view?

Ian Paisley: Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman should read the report submitted by the Chief Constable, a copy of which I gave to the Prime Minister. That document, which is in the Library, sets out the present records of killings, murders, break-ins and the activity of the IRA. It shows that such violence has increased not by 5 or 10 per cent., but by more than 100 per cent. in some cases. Every day when I turn on my wireless at 7 o'clock in the morning, all I hear is a record of the butchering, rioting, bombing and attacks on old people in their houses all around the city. That is what is happening.

Gregory Campbell: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Pages 46 and 47 of the House of Commons research paper show the increase in violence that has occurred. Any hon. Member is free to look at the document and see that 5,200 people were injured in the five years before the agreement in connection with civil disturbances, while 6,400 have been injured in the five years since. The number of casualties resulting from paramilitary attacks has increased from 1,092 to 1,335.

Ian Paisley: I recommend the Library research paper to the hon. Member for Walsall, North. I trust that he will read it. The Prime Minister and Secretary of State tell us that things are better, but they are not. Certainly, there has never been such ill feeling in areas where we see the ravages of the IRA even on its own co-religionists. Where the IRA rules, no one is allowed to dissent in any way, no matter who they are. If they dissent from it, beatings will take place. We see hideous photographs of people who have been beaten at night and had their eyes pulled and almost gouged out. These things are happening all the time and we need to face up to that.
	We need to have the election because the people have to express their will. I do not agree that terrorists would fill any vacuum because of an election. I believe that an election would be the best thing, as people would say, I will register in the ballot, quietly and in secret, what I think of what is happening in Northern Ireland. Surely, this House should be prepared to listen to that voice. It should not suspend the election and take away the people's right to express their will.
	Unionists will not be pushed over and this House needs to learn that. We are asking for nothing but what applies in any other part of this United Kingdomthe freedom to elect our own representatives in a democratic way. I resent our being told that Northern Ireland is entirely different. If that is so, why is not the same thing said about the Irish Republic? Some 10 per cent of its population were Protestants when the border was drawn in the 1920s. How many Protestants are in the south of Ireland today? More than 70 per cent. of the Protestants have been eliminated. Only 2.5 to 3 per cent. of the population are Protestants in the whole of the Irish Republic.
	What is happening around the borders? We are told that the agreement is a great thing

Mark Tami: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Ian Paisley: No. I gave way to the hon. Member for Walsall, North because I had attacked what he said about me and I felt that that was my business. He attacked me in a nice, polite way.

David Winnick: We will both survive.

Ian Paisley: That is right.
	What about the agreement? The document should be called British Ulster Hanged, Drawn and Quartered. All the facts that it contains about life on the border should be studied. The other day, I was on the border, and I saw the turrets that people are busy dismantling. When I said to the police, If the Army is withdrawn from this area, can you do the policing?, they said, Certainly not. We will be on little islands and there will be no way out for any of us. We cannot police this area without the help of the Army. People complain about the noise of helicopters, so there is even talk about not using them. Those helicopters carry the midden rubbish to the dumps because it cannot be carried along the roads in those parts of the border. The situation will be opened up without any support or protection for the people of those areas.

David Burnside: The joint declaration specifies that not only will the towers go, but there will be no helicopter surveillance, which is the only form of aerial surveillance of areas where terrorist activity remains intact.

Ian Paisley: Helicopters will only be allowed to fly for training purposes. That is in the Government's own document, and that is what we are being asked to sign up to. There should be no dismantling of security; people should be protected until the IRA and all those who carry arms and destroy, maim and kill are dealt with by the law. When the law rules, when all men are equal under the law and when all men are equally subject to the law, then one can talk about normalisation. There cannot be normalisation while such things are happening every day of every month of every year. That is what this House needs to face up to.
	I regret that tonight we are putting our hands to the basic principle of democracythat is, that people have a right to state the Government they want and who they want to represent them. Hon. Members should remember that this is a democratic House and that they would want their people to have the same right to send representatives to it. I say this to the Government: the sooner we have this election, the better; you will not change the feelings of the people; and if the situation goes on and on as it is, instead of betterment, a worse situation will arise. I pray Almighty God that that will not happen in a country that has taken such a whipping from terrorism and the IRA down these long years of weary murders and awful war.

Helen Jackson: I am happy to follow the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley). I disagree with a substantial amount of his speech, but not with the importance that he places on elections. We are indeed being asked to take a serious step, because elections and the establishment of the devolved Assembly in Northern Ireland lie at the heart of the Good Friday agreement, which was supported by the majority of people in Northern Ireland and in Ireland as a whole. As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, elections give legitimacy to the representatives who sit in this House or in the Assembly. The whole of the Good Friday agreement is nothing unless elections to the devolved Assembly can be made to work. It is also part of democracy, if we agree with those elections, that those elected should treat each other in a normal way in the belief that legitimacy applies to each and every person, assuming that they are elected honestly without any kind of fraud.
	I believe that the Good Friday agreement was a special document. Last week, I visited an exhibition at the Beaconsfield art gallery, where a sculpture of the Good Friday agreement reached all around the wall. I thought that that made the agreement significant in the same way, one could say, as the Bayeux tapestry made 1066 an important date in our historyI am a mediaeval historian. Another example is the way in which the freedom charter was displayed on posters during the South African elections.
	Hon. Members must not underestimate the need for normality in Northern Ireland. It is not like Sheffield; it does not currently have a normal society. Let us consider the Stevens inquiry and the revelations in today's papers. There is no such focus in Sheffield, which I represent. However, such events do happen in Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. In Sheffield, elected members of a council do not refuse to shake hands. When I served on a council, I could not stand the sight of many of my elected colleagues, but I did not deny their right to be there. I shook hands with them and talked to them properly. In Belfast, the walls in working-class areas glorify armed conflict. Guns are not painted all over walls in working-class areas in Sheffield. Northern Ireland badly needs to restore normality to its society.

David Burnside: Sheffield is a wonderful city. Which elected representatives of political parties there are connected with terrorist or criminal organisations?

Helen Jackson: None to my knowledge, but that is the difference. The Good Friday agreement speaks of bringing normality to an area of the United Kingdom that was dogged by violence and community antagonism, governed by guns and private armies. The negotiations and the vote in the referendum were about that. The vote led the way forward to elections and democracy. We are therefore considering a serious step today. Nobody can totally avoid the blame for the current position.
	I want to focus on two matters on which progress must be made in the summer. I agree with colleagues of all parties who believe that we should not contemplate cancellation or indefinite postponement of elections. There is therefore much to do. Two main issues have led to a breakdown of trust to the extent that the Assembly and the Executive cannot be made to work.
	It is inexcusable for a political party to refuse to agree to a civil police force for its communities. Paramilitary activity and the rough justice meted out by people who claim to be community leaders in charge of their communities continue. A decision must be made about that. My hon. Friend the Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) and the SDLP made such a decision when they supported the new Police Service of Northern Ireland. Would it be accepted if Sinn Fein TDs in the Dail said that they would not accept the authority of the Gardai because they had their own ways of managing in their constituencies? It would not. There also has to be recognition by every party on the Unionist side that when a democratic Assembly is elected again, an established Government will be formed. People will work together, sit down together, vote together and form a Government together. But unless those things happen, the summer will have been wasted.
	My hon. Friend the Minister needs to take it on board that, in the discussions that take place, the demoralisation needs to be acknowledged of many Assembly Members who have thrown their time, their careers and their lives into making the Assembly work. They need to have that demoralisation lifted, and I appreciate the measures in the Bill that will do that. Furthermore, discussions should also be held with the smaller parties that have perhaps been left out of the proper working of the Assembly by the twowell, four, reallymajor parties, which have taken the lion's share of the ministerial appointments. Those smaller parties must be allowed to have their voices heard, because in many cases they represent the voice of communities that also feel demoralised that they and their political parties are unable to establish a Government in Northern Ireland that works.
	I am very reluctant to agree to the deferral of the elections. I think that it represents a serious step backwards, but I will go along with the Government tonight. They have held discussions with the parties in favour of the agreement and with the Government of the Republic of Ireland to ensure that the steps that need to be taken in the summer will be worked on in such a way that democracy can be restored. I reaffirm my concern, however, that if people say, Oh well, we will wait until the autumn and do not face up to the real difficulties that affect the normal political and social life in Northern Ireland, we will be in a difficult positionor an even more difficult positionin the autumn. If the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) is correct in saying that levels of violence were lower before the agreement, should we go back to direct rule and get rid of the Assembly altogether? That is not what was voted for in the referendums on one of the most important agreements on Northern Ireland ever to be negotiated in this Parliament by any Government.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: Just over a week ago, I handed in my nomination papers to be a candidate in the Assembly elections, as did other right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the House. I am opposed to what the Government are doing tonight. I believe that the decision to postpone, delay or cancelhowever we wish to describe itthe elections is a blow to the democratic process in Northern Ireland. There is no way of glossing over that; it is the reality.

Peter Robinson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a number of members of his party have been pleading with the Government to call off the election? The adviser to the leader of the Ulster Unionist party, Steven King, has publicly done so. The former Minister in charge of the economy in Northern Ireland, Sir Reg Empey, has pleaded with the Government to call off the election, as has Paul Bew, another adviser to the Ulster Unionist party. One of the supporters of the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble), Billy Armstrong, who is the Assembly Member for Mid Ulster, has also pleaded with the Government to do so.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: I say to the hon. Gentleman that the Ulster Unionist party took no decision on postponing the elections, and those individuals speak as individuals. They do not speak for the Ulster Unionist party on that issue. Whatever the views of individual members, whether it be the leader of the party or otherwise, let me say that the party collectively took no such decision and that many of us who were seeking to stand were happy and wanted the elections to go forward, because we believe in democracy.
	There is an important issue here, which I know many Members of the House will share. We are told that the election has been postponed because the IRA failed to make the commitments necessary to have the political institutions reinstated and the suspension of the Assembly lifted. Let us think about that for a moment. The Assembly was suspended because of the activities of the IRAthe break-in at Castlereagh police station; Colombia, where some of its members were engaged in international terrorism; and Stormont-gate, which involved the IRA targeting Unionist representatives such as me, the leader of my party, the leader of the Democratic Unionist party and others in the House.
	All those things, as well as the gun running from Florida, led to a collapse in confidence and a breach in trust, and the Government suspended the Assembly because of IRA activity. Therefore, wethe people in Northern Ireland and their political representativeswere denied our local devolved Assembly because of the IRA. All the political parties were punished, and the Democratic Unionists, the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP were removed from office because one party was in default, but now the Government have taken it a step further. They have decided to postpone the elections because the IRA has failed to come up with a form of words that would satisfy the Prime Minister.
	I ask the question, who governs Northern Irelandthe IRA army council or the Prime Minister? It seems that the IRA army council determines whether we have an Assembly and the IRA army council determines whether we have elections. For 30 years, the same IRA bombed, shot, murdered and maimed, but the elections went ahead and the democratic process was protected.
	Those of us who represent the democratic parties show much courage. Tonight, people have called for courage in the House. It takes courage to be an elected representative in Northern Ireland. We kept the political process alive and we kept the process of elections going year after year after year, but now we are told that there has been so much progress in Northern Ireland that, for the first time in the history of this conflict, the Government have postponed the elections because of an illegal terrorist organisation. This is progress. Well, I am not sure that it is, and the Government should reflect on that.
	I join other Members tonight who are arguing that the date for the election should be set in the legislation. Otherwise, the Government will be saying to the IRA army council, You will decide when we go to the country and when we have elections to the Assembly.

David Burnside: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is even worse than that? With the messages coming from the British Government and the Irish Government that many aspects of the joint declaration will be implemented irrespective of the election, Sinn Fein-IRA will once again get their wish list from the Governments.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Indeed, the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) went further. He recommended, as a recipe for political stability in Northern Ireland, that the Government should set a deadline by which the IRA would make a statement, which, presumably, would be sufficient to allow the elections to proceed; but what does the hon. Gentleman suggest we do if the IRA does not deliver and does not bring peace and an end to its violence? Does he suggest that we reward it for its intransigence by fully implementing this declaration? If he has read the document he will understand that it gives Sinn Fein-IRA many things that are supposedly dependent on their making the statement that he suggests may not be made, and then elections would not proceed.

Seamus Mallon: I thank the hon. Gentleman for again drawing attention to his party's position on the joint declaration. Now that he has the Floor, will he state emphatically whether he, as a member of the Ulster Unionist party, supports the joint declaration? If the IRA were to come up to the mark on paragraph 13, would he fight an election on the basis of the declaration? It is for the hon. Gentleman now to answer that question once and for all.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: That is not the most difficult question that I have ever been asked. I have made my position on the joint declaration absolutely clear. I will be straight with the hon. Gentleman, and I hope that he would expect me to do nothing else. I believe that the joint declaration does not provide a basis for the way forward in Northern Ireland. I do not believe that a form of words from the IRA is sufficient. I echo what my hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Mr. Beggs) said earlier in the debate. Words from the IRA will never be enough.
	I remind the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh that on 6 May 2000 the IRA made a statement, which said that
	the IRA leadership will initiate a process that will completely and verifiably put IRA arms beyond use. We will do it in such a way as to avoid risk to the public and misappropriation by others and ensure maximum public confidence.
	Those were the words of the IRA in 2000, but since then it has been gunrunning from Florida, engaging in international terrorism in Colombia, breaking into police stations at Castlereagh, spying on the Government and targeting Unionist politicians. The hon. Gentleman asks me to accept the word of the IRA as the bona fide of the republican movement. I am afraid that he needs to understand that Unionists will not just accept the word of the IRA. We need to see that that organisation has come to an end, has disbanded and disarmed. When the Irish Prime Minister was asked during the general election last year whether he would have Sinn Fein in a coalition Government, he said, No, not until the IRA has disbanded.

Seamus Mallon: I am not asking the hon. Gentleman to believe anything that the IRA says. I am asking him to believe what his leader said on the Floor of the House and to support his party's official position on the document known as the joint declaration. Does he believe what his leader says, or does he not?

Jeffrey M Donaldson: The hon. Gentleman will probably not need reminding that the position of the Ulster Unionist party on the joint declaration will not be made by any individual. It will be for the Ulster Unionist Council alone to determine this party's attitude to the joint declaration. Whatever the Secretary of State may think about those involved in negotiations at Hillsborough, it will be the Ulster Unionist Council that will determine whether the Ulster Unionist party supports the joint declaration. For my partI can only speak for myself until such time as the council makes that decisionI will not be supporting the joint declaration as a basis for going forward in Northern Ireland. I believe that, as ever, it is unbalanced and offers the republican movement things that go against the judicial process. The provisions for on-the-runs, although not part of the joint declaration, are part of the package. We are told that it is a package. I believe that the proposals for on-the-runs will enable some of the most notorious IRA terrorists to return to Northern Ireland without having to serve a single day in prison for the crimes that they have committed. That is a corruption of justice.
	We hear people talk about peace with justice. I do not see peace with justice in this document. I see other things in this document that are premature as regards security. They are included not out of security considerations, but for political expediency, just as the two watchtowers were removed earlier this week for political expediency. I believe, too, that the proposals for sanctions in the agreement between the British and Irish Governments are woefully inadequate. Writing in the newsletter at the weekend, the Unionist columnist Alex Kane described them as a waste of time, and so they are.
	The four-person monitoring body proposed by the Government raises further serious issues relating to the agreement. During negotiation of the agreement, it was made absolutely clear in strand 1 that the Irish Government should have no role in the internal workings of the Assembly. I well remember one of my colleagues, Sir Reg Impeyuntil recently Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investmentsaying that strand 1 must be hermetically sealed. If this proposal proceeds, however, the seal will be broken. A representative of the Irish Government will sit on the monitoring bodya body that will have significant influence over the workings of the Assembly, will be able to investigate the actions of any member or party in the Assembly, and will be able to consider a wide range of issues including whether a party is fundamentally in breach of the requirement in the declaration of support for the agreement. That covers virtually every aspect of the agreement.
	For the first time the Irish Government, through their representative, will have a real say in the internal workings, functions and operation of the Northern Ireland Assembly. In my opinion that constitutes a breach of the agreement, and I do not believe that any Unionist should support the Irish Government's having such a say in the Assembly.
	For those reasons alone, I do not believe that the joint declaration provides a basis for an advance in the political process, and I am confident that the Ulster Unionist Council will make that clear when it makes a decision.

Ian Paisley: Did not the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) tell a Unionist meeting recently that he had not seen all of the joint declaration? How, then, can the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) say You should do this because your leader supports it?

Jeffrey M Donaldson: That is true. The right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) made it clear to his party that he had not endorsed the declaration. I am not sure where the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) got that idea.

Seamus Mallon: Is the hon. Gentleman telling me that the leader of his party sat through seven months of negotiations that produced a document called the joint declaration which he did not see?

Jeffrey M Donaldson: I can only report that that is what we were told.

David Burnside: The Government should be clear about this. The Ulster Unionist party leadership and corporate body do not move from one council resolution to the next. We are linked to the Ramada hotel Ulster Unionist Council meeting that took place before Christmas. Before the party and its leadership can do anything, the Ulster Unionist Council will have to be called and to endorse the new policy position.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: That is true. The policy of the Ulster Unionist party remains that adopted unanimously at the meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council on 21 September 2002. It would therefore not be possible for the party to endorse the joint declaration in any sense, as aspects of it contradict the policy adopted then. It is why I reiterate that it will be for the Ulster Unionist Council to make that determination and that decision.

Seamus Mallon: When I spoke earlier, I asked a question. I asked the same question last week. If the IRA had said that it would stop all the activities specified in paragraph 13, would the Ulster Unionist party have gone ahead with the election on that basis? I still do not have an answer to that. Would the hon. Member like to give an answer on behalf of himself, or perhaps on behalf of his party, the ruling council of his party or whoever it may be in the Stalinist way that it does business?

Jeffrey M Donaldson: The Ulster Unionist party is most certainly not Stalinist. It is the most democratic party when it comes to our decision-making processes. We are open. Everyone can see how we do our business and the decisions that are taken, but let me answer the hon. Member's question. The answer is very simple. I believe that the elections should have gone ahead in any event. I was not waiting for the IRA to come up with some form of words. I was not waiting for the IRA to cease doing anything. The elections should have gone ahead in any event. They should go ahead at the earliest opportunity, regardless of what the IRA says or does, because it is fundamentally my view that the IRA should not be given a veto over the democratic process in Northern Ireland, which is precisely what the Government have given it.
	The Secretary of State tells us that he cannot give the date for the next election precisely for the reason that he does not know when the IRA will come up with a form of words that will satisfy the Government. In other words, the IRA army council has a veto over the election in Northern Ireland. I cannot believe that that represents progress. However, I suspect that the Secretary of State will have some time to wait. I am not sure how relevant the answer is to the question from the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) about when autumn begins. I think that we are in for a long autumn before we get the clarity from the IRA that the Secretary of State hopes for.
	When I read the statement that was drafted by the IRA on 13 April, I do not see a reasonable prospect of the IRA coming up even with a form of words, if that were enough in itself, to satisfy Ulster Unionists that it is committed to exclusively peaceful means. The IRA statement is couched in hypothetical terms. It talks about a situation that may evolve in the future, that sets a context for a decision by an organisation known as its general army convention, and that is contingent upon many things happening. Therefore, the Secretary of State should review the Government's position. He should consider the amendments that have been tabled to set a date for the election.
	We probably cannot now proceed with the election on 29 May, because of the interruption in the electoral process. I regret that but I think that the Government should proceed, even at the earliest opportunity; 26 June has been one of the dates suggested. That would send a clear signal to the IRA that it is not going to impede political progress in Northern Ireland.
	Some people say, An election to what? We had elections in 1998 to a shadow Assembly. We had elections in 1996 to a forum. Nothing in the rulebook says that elections can take place only if they are to the kind of Assembly that operated post-devolution in Northern Ireland.
	A review of the agreement is due. I would like it to go way beyond a review because I believe, as I did in 1998 when I voted against the agreement, that it is fundamentally flawed. Until those flaws are addressed, we will not see the kind of political progress, political stability and real and lasting peace in Northern Ireland that we all want to see.
	Sometimes, those of us on this side of the House are accused by other hon. Members of not wanting to see political progress, of wanting to wreck everything, of not believing in peace. That could not be further from the truth. I have two young children and I grew up in what was known as the troubles. My family were very much involved with the security forces and I have seen personally and in my community the grief that violence brings. Other right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House have seen that. I do not want my children to grow up in such a society. I want them to enjoy life just like children throughout the rest of the United Kingdom. I want the people whom I represent in the constituency of Lagan Valley to have the same future in the same kind of society and community as those in the constituency of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Helen Jackson).
	To achieve that, we have to make the progress that we are not seeing at the moment. I do not believe that the Government's tactics and approach will bring that about. Unfortunately, the IRA responds to pressure; it does not respond to concessions in terms of bringing about the real changes that we want in Northern Ireland. We have had the concessions process and it has not worked. The Secretary of State needs to send out the clearest message that we will move on.
	The hon. Member for Newry and Armagh failed to respond to the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (David Burnside), and it is a question to which Unionists want to know the answer. If Sinn Fein-IRA does not deliver on the actions and the words that will see a real end to violence in Northern Ireland, is his party saying that Northern Ireland will for ever be consigned to a process of direct rule and that there are no circumstances in which there can be a devolved Administration? His party needs to think about that, because I am not convinced that the IRA will deliver the progress that will see the reinstatement of the political institutions in the form that the Government expect.

Seamus Mallon: The position that the hon. Gentleman has presented to the House on behalf of himself and some of his party will not demand of the IRA that it meet the requirements of paragraph 13 of the joint declaration. In effect, he is saying that, even if those requirements are met, he and many of his colleagues will still oppose the agreement and its inclusive nature. Surely that will strangle the approach that he is talking about and do so in a way that is detrimental to the political process for everybody.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: Let me make it absolutely clear to the hon. Gentleman that I am not against the principle of inclusivity. However, inclusivity must be based on something. When his party, my party and the Democratic Unionist party were involved in political negotiations, we signed up to the principles of democracy and non-violence. That was to be the basis for inclusivity. The republican partySinn Fein-IRAhas not lived up to those principles, and the hon. Gentleman accepts that. If it fails to live up to those principles, inclusivity and the involvement of Sinn Fein-IRA is not possible.
	That then gives rise to the question that I posed earlier and to which the hon. Gentleman, once again, failed to respond. Is his party prepared to consider circumstances in which it will sit in government with Unionists and democratic parties and exclude those who have failed to make the commitment until such time as they do? Otherwise we simply suspend the democratic process in Northern Ireland, cancel the elections and we will not have an Assembly. We will then have what the hon. Gentleman mentioned earlieran apolitical vacuum. My suggestion is not a recipe for a vacuum, but his way forward is. If he believes that imposing the joint declaration is the way towards political stability, he is sadly mistaken. In the same way that the imposition of the Anglo-Irish agreement did not achieve political stability in Northern Ireland, nor will the imposition of the joint declaration.

Seamus Mallon: The hon. Gentleman asks whether my party would effectively tear up the Good Friday agreement in certain circumstances. I suggest to him that the part of his party to which he belongs at any given moment in time should put it to the IRA in such a way that if there were an election somewhere down the line, the electorate could see clearly who reneged and who did not. That is why his position effectively lets the IRA off the hook in many ways.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: The hon. Gentleman makes a point that he has made many times in the Chamber, and he has been wrong many times.
	The Belfast agreement provides for exclusion. I do not ask the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh to tear up the agreement by asking him to accept the principle of exclusion because he signed up to that when he supported the agreement. There is a provision for exclusion in the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Indeed, I remember that he once made a promise that if the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) would go into government with Sinn Fein, he would personally guarantee that if the IRA had not decommissioned within a defined time, the Social Democratic and Labour party would vote to exclude it from government.
	Exclusion is already provided for, but Unionist Members need to know whether the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh and his party will support that if the IRA fails to come up to the mark. We have not heard the answer to that question and I suspect that we will not receive it this evening.

Quentin Davies: The hon. Gentleman has alighted on an important issue but, as so often happens in Northern Ireland debates, his pertinent question will be responded to by another question. Does he agree that it is one thing to expect the SDLP to take explicit responsibility for excluding Sinn Fein or any other recalcitrant party from an Executive, but another thing altogether for the SDLP and other parties to accept that the Government should have the right to exclude such a recalcitrant party? That is the power that I have urged the Government to take and I offered our support for it last July. If we had that power and if the Government had used it, we would have been able to avoid the present crisis.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He might be aware that the Government already have the power to refer any party to the Assembly that they believe to be in breach of its obligations. The Government have not used that power in Northern Ireland during the past five years. Despite all the activities, including IRA cease-fire breaches and even espionage against the Northern Ireland Office, the Government failed to make a move or to table an exclusion motion. What confidence can we have that even if the Government had the power that the hon. Gentleman proposes, they would ever utilise it? I would support them if they took that power, but I have little confidence that they would use it. In the end, the decision will come down to the parties in the Assembly and to whether the SDLP is prepared to work with Unionists in such a situation.
	These are serious issues. I regret that the House does not have more time to consider the Bill in detailwe should have that time. We are being denied elections and the right to scrutinise the Bill much more effectively. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State is unhappy with the length of time for which I have spoken but I remind him that he spoke for an hour and that the Government have curtailed the debate. They set the guillotine and created the timetable, and they have denied elected representatives the proper opportunity to scrutinise the Bill, which is highly regrettable. 9.54 pm

John Taylor: Time is limited, and I shall not trespass too much on what is left of it.
	I listened intently to the contributions, not least to the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson). Rather gloomily, I agree with him about a long autumn and direct rule. I am far from enthusiastic about continuing government by Order in Council. My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) rightly said that the logical conclusion of the Conservative party voting against Second Reading would be to wish an Assembly election on 29 May. That would be a recipe for chaos and incoherence.
	Tonight's proceedings are a monumental indictment of the Government's attitude to the House of Commons. The absence of a Committee stage is a disgrace. It has been a bad day for the Governmenta bad 10 days, in fact. In the interests of the people of Northern Ireland, we hope for better things, but it is not with overwhelming optimism.

Des Browne: Like the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor), I, too, listened with care to the debate. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that he would reflect on the contributions, which we will, of course, do. I will include in that reflection the comments by the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley), who described me as the wee Scottish man.
	I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Walsall, North (David Winnick) and for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Helen Jackson) for their support. They are ever present in debates on Northern Ireland and speak with some knowledge and understanding of the situation there. I understand their reluctance, and the reluctance of other hon. Members, to support the Bill because of the difficulty that all democrats have with postponing elections. To the extent that my hon. Friends supported the Government, I thank them for that.
	I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) on his analysis of what is needed to restore trust and confidence in the peace and political processes in Northern Ireland. I will read with care his comments in the Official Report tomorrow, but I clearly understood him to go well beyond a form of words in what he said at the beginning of his speech. To that extent, he hit the nail on the head.
	I thank the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. Mackay) for his understanding and support of the strategy adopted by my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister. I also thank him for his pledge of support for the Government in the Lobby if it comes to that. To paraphrase him, he said that many of his Conservative colleagues support the view that my right hon. Friends have made the right decision. I know from my conversations that he is right about that, too.
	I was disappointed by the contribution of the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies). Before the debate, I reminded myself of his contribution to the debate on 17 March, when I suggested in an intervention that his contribution was understated. That reminded me that he does not do irony. What he does do, however, and he does it with aplomb, is pomposity. He is fond of suggesting to the Government that if only they had listened to him, things would have been significantly different and better in Northern Ireland. He is also fond of adopting everything that he thinks the Government have done right as being in response to his urgings. Those of us who have listened to him for some time on the issues and have seen his position change significantly on occasions will make our own minds up about that.
	The hon. Gentleman was so caught up in his flawed analysis of the Government's strategy that he did not once mention the effect of continuing paramilitary activity on trust and confidence in Northern Ireland. That was my most significant disappointment with his contribution. I was also slightly disappointed that the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) did not mention it, although he was right to remind me of my contribution to the debate on 17 March.
	I do not have time to do justice to the contributions, but I want to put it on the record for those who read the debate in future that life is better in Northern Ireland for the people of Northern Ireland because of the Belfast agreement. To take statistics of violence

It being Ten o'clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker, pursuant to Order [this day], put forthwith the Question, That the Bill be read a Second time:
	The House divided: Ayes 290, Noes 22.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Committee of the whole House, pursuant to Order [this day].
	NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY (ELECTIONS AND PERIODS OF SUSPENSION) BILL [MONEY]
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a) (Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with Bills),
	That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections and Periods of Suspension) Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of
	(a) any expenditure incurred by the Secretary of State under the Act,
	(b) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under any other enactment.[Mr. Caplin.]
	Question agreed to.
	Bill immediately considered in Committee, pursuant to Order [this day].

[Sir Alan Haslehurst in the Chair]
	  
	Clause 1
	  
	Election Of Next Assembly

Motion made, and Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
	The Committee divided: Ayes 289, Noes 21.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
	Clauses 2 and 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4
	  
	Remuneration Of Members Of The Assembly

Motion made, and Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:
	The Committee divided: Ayes 291, Noes 13.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
	Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6
	  
	Modification Of Enactments

Motion made, and Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:
	The Committee divided: Ayes 285, Noes 12.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
	Clause 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
	Bill reported, without amendment.
	Order for Third Reading read, pursuant to Order [this day].
	Motion made, and Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.[Mr. Caplin.]
	The House divided: Ayes 256, Noes 17.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Bill read the Third time, and passed.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Value Added Tax

That the Value Added Tax (Supply of Services) (Amendment) Order 2003 (S.I., 2003, No. 1055), dated 9th April 2003, a copy of which was laid before this House on 9th April, be approved.

Government Resources and Accounts

That the draft Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000 (Audit of Public Bodies) Order 2003, which was laid before this House on 3rd April, be approved.

Government Resources and Accounts

That the draft Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000 (Rights of Access of Comptroller and Auditor General) Order 2003, which was laid before this House on 3rd April, be approved.

Government Resources and Accounts

That the draft Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000 (Audit of Health Service Bodies) Order 2003, which was laid before this House on 2nd April, be approved.

Local Government Finance

That the Local Government Finance (England) Special Grant Report (No. 120) (HC 578) on Grants for local authorities classed as 'excellent' under the comprehensive performance assessment framework, a copy of which was laid before this House on 3rd April, be approved.[Mr. Caplin.]
	Question agreed to.

Minutes of Evidence of Select Committees

Ordered,
	That Standing Order No. 131 (Entry of questions asked) be amended by leaving out the words , and at the beginning of each page of the minutes of evidence,.[Mr. Caplin.]

Business of the House

Ordered,
	That, at the sitting on Thursday 15th May, notwithstanding paragraph (2)(c)(i) of Standing Order No. 14 (Arrangement of public business), the Motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition may be proceeded with, though opposed, until Four o'clock or for three hours, whichever is the longer period, and shall then lapse if not previously disposed of and the Orders of the House of 28th June 2001 and 29th October 2002 relating to deferred Divisions shall not apply.[Mr. Caplin.]

THELWALL VIADUCT (M6)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.[Mr. Caplin.]

Helen Southworth: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise a serious problem that faces my constituents.
	Many Members, and indeed millions of people across the country, will have heard of the Thelwall viaduct on the M6. In fact it is becoming almost as famous as the M25 in the traffic reportsalthough I must say that it is in a far more attractive part of the country, in my Cheshire constituency.
	Normally, the M6 is a tremendous local asset for Warrington. It connects us directly with the national transport infrastructure and brings a lot of business and jobs. Unfortunately, however, it is currently rather a neighbourhood nuisance as well, directing much unnecessary additional traffic on to our roads.
	Warrington is a prosperous town surrounded by villages. It has always been a business town. It was established by the Romans at the first crossing point on the Mersey. The Thelwall viaduct provides passage for the M6 motorway over the River Mersey and the Manchester ship canal, once two strategic arteries in their own right. Warrington is still at the centre of the north-west traffic network, with the M62 crossing to the north and the M56 to the south. The west coast main line goes through the town and there are two international airports.
	The Thelwall viaduct was constructed in 1963. I understand that the Minister was very familiar with the traffic routes at that point in his youth. Some six years ago, a new viaduct was constructed alongside the existing one to double the capacity of the crossing. The old structure was subjected to extensive maintenance and improvement works in 1995 before reopening to traffic. It is used by nearly 200,000 vehicles a day.
	In June 2002, a formal but routine inspection was in progress when the bridge inspector fortunately decided to look closely at one of the main bridge bearings. In essence, those are high-tensile steel rollers that are designed to cope with the natural movements of the road deck. The inspection found that one of the main roller bearings carrying the largest span of the viaduct across the ship canal had sheared. Detailed investigations were urgently carried out. They revealed other failures in the bridge bearings and the decision was correctly taken, for health and safety reasons, to close the old viaduct to all but northbound traffic running in one lane in order to carry out urgent remedial works.
	Following the closure, extensive surveys were undertaken of all roller bearings, including visual and ultrasonic testing. Those confirmed that seven bearings were failing in the same way. Work was programmed to replace the bearings urgently and a date of April 2003 was given for the remedial work to be completed. My constituents were unhappy about the delay but understood the reason for it. However, continuing intensive testing found that bearings all over the bridge were failing even while the work was being carried out. While their predecessors had lasted over 35 years, those bearings were failing after only six years.
	Rightly, the Highways Agency decided to delay the proposed Easter opening of the viaduct and to replace all the roller bearings in the structure. The latest estimate for reopening is now March 2005, some two years beyond the expected opening this Easter. The estimated cost of replacing the bearings is 30 million but that is not the only cost to be considered. Those extensive repairs and the consequent transport delays are causing real problems in my constituency and across the north-west for the traffic infrastructure.
	There are significant delays most days at that point in the motorway network. Those are widely publicised on local and national media. Instead of enduring those delays, some drivers are diverting through the town and surrounding villages, causing traffic jams for road users, a profound nuisance and hazard to residents. The roads in the town and our many villages are simply not designed for the traffic load that they currently have to bear. I hope that the Minister recognises the serious problem that my constituents face and will continue to face until spring 2005.
	Why is the disruption so significant? Apart from the obvious impact on our local environment and the road safety issues of extensive additional through traffic, an effective transport infrastructure is vital to the success of our local and regional economy. Warrington has a vibrant local economy, bringing good jobs for local people. The unemployment rate is an impressively low 1.8 per cent. We are at the centre of the north-west, with good motorway and rail networks, and we play a key part in the business and academic communities of Manchester and Liverpool. Key regional and national companies and services are based in Warrington: British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., United Utilities, the regional development agency, and the strategic health authority, among many others.
	In Warrington, we intend to do everything that we can to keep that edge. Growth in the Warrington economy will outstrip national growth by more than three times by 2015. Employment has grown by 29 per cent. over the past 10 years, the second highest growth rate in the country. It is set to increase by almost four times the national rate over the next 10 years. We are working very hard and effectively to make that happen. Sites such as Omega and Birchwood Park are being developed to provide areas for further economic development that have a strategic significance right across the north-west. Warrington is a true economic success story and we are working tremendously hard in the community to make sure that that continues. We want the Minister's support to help us.
	In particular, we want to ensure that the town's success is not endangered by the traffic disruption caused by work on the Thelwall viaduct. Warrington and the north-west have traded very successfully on location and easy access when attracting new investors. This approach is obviously at risk when potential investors see trouble on this crucial part of the transport network.
	Warrington and the surrounding area is the distribution base for many regional companies. Thousands of workers are employed in this sector in Warrington and very many thousands in the north-west as a whole. There is a vital freight route from Eire to Europe via the M62 upon which the vitality of the Liverpool port depends. We cannot afford that to be undermined by continued delays at the junction of the M6 and M62 that are caused by the tailback at the viaduct.
	Warrington's economy is forecast to grow by nearly 4 per cent. between 2000 and 2005, compared with the UK predicted level of 2.5 per cent. We need a speedy resolution to the issue. We do not want our local economy to lose, an outcome that I am sure the Minister will agree is not acceptable.
	Public safety is absolutely paramount, and I understand and welcome the preventive action taken to protect the travelling public. I have had a number of discussions with Cheshire police about the road works and the resources that it has allocated to improve road safety. The motorway police have coped well with 10 months of road works so far, but a further two years work will place a considerable strain on them. I hope that that point is understood and acknowledged by my hon. Friend.
	I should also point out that the safety of roads in the centre of Warrington and the villages around it is being compromised by the extra traffic that is trying to avoid the motorway. Substantial amounts of time, effort and money are being spent on coping with that at the expense of planned improvements in safety elsewhere in my constituency.
	I would like the Minister to answer some specific questions. Will he assure me that the work on the viaduct will be completed as swiftly as is compatible with public safety? The work must take place as speedily as possible with whatever resources are needed to make sure that that can happen. Can he confirm that all necessary financial and professional resources are being deployed to resolve the present engineering problems in the shortest possible time? Will he confirm that the full inspection of the whole structure has now been carried out and that no further works with a similar need for traffic restrictions will extend our current deadline for completion and the reopening of the viaduct to traffic?
	The bridge bearings that failed were only six years old with a life expectancy of substantially more than that. Can the Minister confirm what action is being taken to determine the reasons for the failure? How will he ensure that the current renovations will have a respectable life expectancy?
	Warrington was designated as a centre of excellence following the submission and acceptance of its local transport plan in August 2000. The problems resulting from restrictions on the viaduct now make the delivery of the plan extremely difficult at a critical period. Can the Minister assure me that the effect of the repairs to the Thelwall viaduct will be taken into consideration when Warrington's performance against the plan is reviewed by his Department? Will he make additional resources available to allow Warrington to continue to make essential progress on transport improvements for the people of Warrington?
	I know that the officers of the Highways Agency have worked effectively with Warrington borough council to look for ways to reduce traffic congestion in our local community. What will the Minister do to develop and extend the support that they provide for the duration of the traffic disturbances? Will he further confirm his support for the closest possible liaison between the council and the Highways Agency to ensure that traffic disruption is kept to a minimum, that additional traffic on our roads is minimised and that Warrington's economy is protected?
	We want to keep long-distance drivers travelling on the M6 motorway, not on our town centre and village roads. Of course, if they would like to savour the delights of my constituency, to call into one of the many top-class shopping outlets, to have a meal at one of our excellent restaurants or to stay in one of our friendly hotels, they will be extremely welcome to break their journey with us. However, we must discourage people from rat running through our roads just to avoid the inconvenience and minor delay of motorway repairs. That does not make motorists' journeys any quicker and causes great inconvenience for local people.
	I ask the Minister to do two key things. First, will he focus the attention of the specialists carrying out the remedial worksthe metallurgists, engineers and structural peopleon resolving the issues as safely and efficiently as possible in the shortest possible time? Will he take a personal interest in ensuring that that actually happens? Secondly, will he make additional resources available to help Warrington to tackle the problems caused by two and a half years of disruptions, diversions and delays? May we have resources to bring forward a local package of safety and transport improvements to run in parallel with the work on the viaduct? Many improvements are already planned and would help to compensate for the impact of the displaced traffic.
	The north-west is an important part of the national economy and Warrington is right at the heart of the north-west. My constituents hope that the Minister will give them the comfort that they need and the action that they are looking for.

David Jamieson: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South (Helen Southworth) on securing the debate and on the way in which she prosecuted her case with brevity and precision. As always, she speaks up for her constituents. She even took us back to Roman times, and I always enjoy the little history lessons that we get on these occasions. She referred to a time about a year or so after the viaduct opened. I recall travelling across it in the heady days of my youth in my old pre-war Austin 10. Sadly, in those days the motorway finished just north of the viaduct and my journey to Aberdeen continued on somewhat narrower roadsalthough given that my car would barely do more than 40 mph, that did not matter a great deal.
	I know that this matter is of great importance to my hon. Friend and those who live and work in her constituency. Her constituents are understandably concerned about the impact of prolonged work on the Thelwall viaduct and the associated traffic restrictions on business and travel in the area. Of course, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I are worried not only about the possible impact on the region and the north-west economy, but about the impact on the major north-south transport corridor in the west of the country.
	The Thelwall viaduct is in fact made up of two viaducts. One takes northbound traffic and the other takes southbound traffic. It is 1.5 km long and carries the M6 Motorway over the Manchester ship canal, the River Mersey and Warrington road. It is one of the busiest sections of the motorway in the north-west of England and typically carries between 150,000 and 160,000 vehicles a day.
	Good motorway connections are of major importance to business, and the proximity of the M6 to my hon. Friend's constituency is a major benefit to its local business. My hon. Friend will be aware that it was announced recently that a route management strategy for the M6, from junction 20 at Warrington to the Scottish border, is being drawn up to cover the next 10 years. That includes the section of motorway carried by the Thelwall viaduct. The study is aimed at identifying the best means of managing the motorway to relieve congestion, improve safety, protect the environment, provide better travel information and make the best use of the road network.
	As my hon. Friend acknowledged, Warrington is well served by the motorway network. As the network stops 40 miles from my constituency, I would be happy to have the coverage that she enjoys. I am aware that the network has contributed to the town's attractiveness to developers. In addition to the M6, the M56 to the south of town and the M62 to the north also serve Warrington. The town has direct access to the motorway network at six junctions. Although benefiting the town, that also contributes to localised difficulties on the strategic motorway corridor because traffic makes short distance local journeys between junctions.
	My hon. Friend is aware that a new junction 8 has recently been provided on the M62 at Warrington, with associated widening of the motorway, funded by English Partnerships. That gives much improved access to the nearby Gemini retail and business park, and will provide direct access to the forthcoming Omega business retail and leisure project, which over its life is estimated to bring 12,000 jobs to the region. I am sure that my hon. Friend welcomes those developments in the north, which I believe will have widespread benefits. Indeed, in addition to those opportunities in the north, I understand that a number of further major proposals are being promoted in the wider Warrington area.
	I need to provide some background to the present situation at the Thelwall viaduct. The original crossing of the ship canal was opened as two viaducts in 1963. In the mid-1990s, in response to very significant increases in traffic, a new viaduct was constructed alongside the original structures. The original viaducts were then refurbished to form one, which carried four lanes of northbound traffic while the new viaduct carried four lanes of southbound traffic.
	In July last year, the refurbished viaduct was partially closed to traffic after a routine inspection on behalf of the Highways Agency, which is responsible for the management, maintenance, operation and improvement of the trunk road and motorway network, that revealed a problem with one of the viaduct's large roller bearings. Those are substantial beasts and are nearly the size of the Dispatch Box. They are also expensive and have to be replaced. The agency has a thorough maintenance regime by which it monitors the condition of all its bridges and the discovery of the Thelwall problem resulted from that process.
	Bridge bearings are designed to cater for the bridge deck movement caused by traffic loads and changes in temperature. On the Thelwall viaduct, that movement is allowed for in part by the use of 136 steel cylindrical roller bearings. It was one of the largest of those that was found to have failed. Temporary supports were immediately installed and traffic restrictions were put in place. Those restrictions have remained while investigations and remedial work, which will not have been apparent to drivers, have continued beneath the viaduct.
	Originally, the Highways Agency announced its intention to reopen the viaduct by Christmas. At that time, it was thought that only four of the largest bearings needed to be replaced. However, a comprehensive inspection revealed that 10 other bearings had failed. The agency revised its reopening date to Easter 2003 to enable the additional 10 bearings to be replaced. I know that it will be of little consolation to my hon. Friend, but all those repairs were completed by the advertised date.
	The Highways Agency has enlisted the help of leading experts who have worked with it to find a solution that would allow traffic to return to normal as quickly as possible. Laboratory testing and investigations into the failed bearings is now substantially complete. Those findings have confirmed that there is a very high probability that all remaining roller bearings are deteriorating and likely to suffer similar failure. In the interests of public safety and to maintain the integrity of the structure, the Highways Agency concluded that it could not fully reopen the viaduct as intended.
	The agency is moving ahead as quickly as is feasible while ensuring that all the problems are identified and properly addressed. I assure my hon. Friend that a full inspection of the whole structure has been carried out and that ongoing monitoring of the structure is in place. I am confident that all the necessary works are now being identified. As I said, expert assistance has been enlisted in the interests of finding the long-term solution as quickly as possible. My hon. Friend is of course right to point out that the life expectancy of the roller bearings in the refurbished structure should substantially exceed six years. Detailed technical investigations are under way to determine the reasons for the failures. At this point, I should acknowledge that the cost of the remedial work is likely to be substantial. I do not wish to put a figure on that at this stage or to say anything further on that aspect, given that the question of liability for the failures that have occurred is likely to be decided through litigation and the courts. Nevertheless, funds will be available to the Highways Agency to carry out the necessary remedial work.
	Let me deal with the expected duration of the remedial work and the duration and extent of traffic management measures. Last July, when the problem was first identified, as a safety measure traffic was restricted to a single lane on the northbound viaduct. That allowed traffic to leave the motorway for Warrington at junction 21, with three narrow lanes for traffic in each direction on the new viaduct using a contraflow system with a 40 mph speed restriction. It has been necessary to retain those traffic management arrangements, for safety reasons. The Highways Agency is doing all it can to limit delays on the motorway by means of advance warning signs on all the approaches. Unfortunately, however, there is no convenient diversion using the motorway network. Diverting traffic along the M62, M60, M56 and A556 would add some 15 miles to the journey, and parts of that route are already at full capacity during peak periods. The agency is continuing to monitor traffic patterns closely and will keep all possible diversion routes under review.
	The agency is aware of the concerns about the effects that restrictions on the viaduct are having on the community of Warrington and on local businesses, and is working closely with those affected and those with an interest, in particular Warrington borough council, to identify the scale of the impact. I believe that one of the council's main concerns is that visitors to Warrington are being deterred, believing that there is continual queuing on the M6 when in fact, for some periods outside peak hours, that is not so. To address that, the Highways Agency is considering the possibility of using variable message signs on the motorway in a more flexible manner, to respond more quickly to changing circumstances.
	I fully understand the concerns raised by my hon. Friend about the level of traffic that is currently diverting on to the local road network to the west of the M6. It is recognised that the current restrictions are leading to additional traffic in Warrington and therefore to increased congestion in the town. The Highways Agency is collecting traffic count information and working closely with the council to quantify the problems and identify possible mitigation measures on the network. I understand that a useful and productive meeting recently took place between the agency and the council at which these issues were explored. I welcome my hon. Friend's acknowledgement of the support given locally by the Highways Agency, and I have asked the agency to continue that approach in working with the council to assist the local community.
	My hon. Friend raised the important issue of the impact of the continuing effects of the traffic restrictions on the council's delivery of its local transport plan, I would expect the council to explain any difficulties when submitting its third annual progress report in July. I will consider any request that it makes for additional resources at that time. I hope that my hon. Friend finds that assurance helpful.
	The duration of the works required to repair the viaduct will become clearer over the next few months. I understand that estimates of up to two years have appeared in the local press, and it is true that at this stage the Highways Agency considers that it might take until March 2005 to complete all the work. I have therefore asked the agency to investigate the possibility of phasing the work to secure early release of additional traffic lanes on the viaduct carrying the northbound traffic. It is not yet clear whether that can be achieved, but I will write to my hon. Friend when those investigations are complete.
	Since the problem arose last summer, the Highways Agency has been providing regular progress reports to Ministers. My right hon. Friends the Minister of State and the Secretary of State have both taken a personal interest in the case, as have I, so my hon. Friend can be assured that 100 per cent. of the transport team are on her case. I think that she can be assured that everything possible is being done to bring this matter to a conclusion in as short a time as possible and with the minimum amount of disruption.
	In addition to writing to my hon. Friend, I have asked the Highways Agency to ensure that it keeps her informed of any further significant developments so that she may continue to represent and inform her constituents.
	This has been a useful debate on an extremely important strategic part of our motorway network. I congratulate my hon. Friend on the way in which she has represented her constituents and wider regional interests and probably some wider national interests.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock.